


Best Served Cold

by headfirstfrhalos



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: (that's josh), Angst with a Happy Ending, Awkward Romance, Blood and Gore, Brutal Murder, Cannibalism, Childhood Trauma, Corpse Desecration, Decapitation, Dubious Morality, Heavy Angst, Ice Cream, Ice Cream Truck Driver Josh Dun, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Morally Ambiguous Character, POV Alternating, Past Child Abuse, Past Sexual Abuse, Pedophilia, Pining, Protective Older Brothers, Revenge, Serial Killer Tyler Joseph, Serial Killers, Siblings, Sort Of, Suicide Attempt, Touch-Starved, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Violent Thoughts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-11-16
Packaged: 2019-08-08 20:31:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 33,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16436285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/headfirstfrhalos/pseuds/headfirstfrhalos
Summary: Josh drives an ice cream truck. Tyler is a serial killer. Both are, in their opinion, working for a good cause.





	1. A Vague Sense of Unease

Josh had mixed feelings regarding the later half of August. On one hand, it brought good business-- everyone wanted ice cream when it was nearly a hundred degrees without a single cloud or puff of wind to cool things down. On the other hand _, it was nearly a hundred degrees without a single cloud or puff of wind to cool things down._  
  
He was pretty sure his sweat was disintegrating his paper hat. It was cooler inside the ice cream truck than it was outside, but all the fans and the freezers in the world couldn't keep him from overheating, not in this high-collared shirt and these long black slacks. _At least the shirt is short-sleeved,_ he thought wearily.  
  
His right arm was sore from scooping ice cream all afternoon and he switched to his left about an hour ago, even if he wasn't as skilled or as fast with that one. The line that had gathered outside his truck immediately after he arrived at the park had yet to get any shorter, and he'd already run out of chocolate even though he came here with ten gallons of the stuff.  
  
"Five sixty-eight, please," he said to the little girl he was serving.  
  
She reached up and he stooped down, nearly toppling over the side of the truck and onto the pavement to accept the money and hand her her sundae. He had half a mind to install some sort of door or porthole about two feet below the prefabricated serving window to make transactions easier for both parties, but he was no handyman and his dad would laugh and say he loved the idea but never actually get around to doing it.  
  
The heat and the repetition made the hours smear together into an amorphous mass filled with sweet-smelling sugar cones and grins full of new, crooked teeth. The work wasn't mindless or menial, but it certainly wasn't all-consuming. He liked to people-watch while he worked; it gave him a little window into other people's worlds as they went about their days at the park, at whatever neighborhood he stopped in, across the street from a public school. He observed the kids and parents on the playground some fifty feet away. Despite the heat, dozens of little kids were running around on the sand and chasing each other over the play structures while their parents supervised from the refuge of the large, shady tree planted nearby.  
  
Crying erupted on the playground some twenty feet away. That wasn't unusual at all, but the sound still made Josh's chest ache a little. He glanced away from the cash register and peered out the window, and he covered his mouth in shock at what he saw. A mother and her son were standing at the edge of the sand pit, the boy crying into his hands as his mother berated them, and then she wound back her right arm and struck him so hard he fell over, creating a plume of dusty sand as he hit the ground. She grabbed him by the wrist and started tugging him away to the parking lot, and Josh noticed that he only had one shoe.  
  
_Oh my God,_ he thought.  _That's just wrong._  
  
"Hold on one second, please," he said to the two middle schoolers in front of him.  
  
He rushed to the back of the truck and looked at the laminated sheet of emergency phone numbers taped to the cooling compartment. He found the number to the local police station and pulled his cell phone out of his pocket to dial the number. It rung once, twice, three times, before someone picked up.  
  
"Hello?" the operator said.  
  
"Hi, this is Josh Dun, I'm calling to--"  
  
"Do you know the perpetrator's name or address?" the operator interrupted, recognizing Josh's voice from dozens of previous calls.  
  
"N-no," Josh sputtered, getting desperate when he heard his disinterest, "but she's got a red sedan, and her kid's about five--"  
  
"We've told you this, if you don't have names or addresses, there's nothing we can do, sorry."  
  
The line went dead. It took all of Josh's strength not to hurl his phone across the cabin and scream. Couldn't they at least _feign_ concern? This wasn't the first time Josh has seen abuse like this, and experience told him that this wouldn't be the last time, either, given that the police seemed utterly resistant to the prospect of actually enforcing the law they were sworn and paid by the public to uphold. He's seen more serious cases, too, of recorded sex offenders violating the law and entering school zones and playgrounds, and once, even taking a child, but there was always, _always_ , an excuse.  
  
He didn't know who he hated more: the police or the predators. More often than not Josh wished he could take matters into his own hands-- to grip their necks with both hands and squeeze the life out of them, or dash their heads against the concrete until their brains dripped out, to force them to confront what they've done and continue to do in the most violent way possible. The thoughts disgusted him, he knew it was wrong, but he knew he could do it. He'd be doing the world a service.  
  
A small fist pounded on the side of the van, breaking Josh from his darkening thoughts.  
  
"Hello? Mister?" a voice called from the outside.  
  
Josh took a deep breath and returned to the window.  
  
"Sorry about that," he said, forcing himself to smile and forget. "Your order?"

* * *

  
Josh came home just in time for dinner. Stifling all his anger for hours on end left its mark as a pounding headache that gripped the base of his skull and stabbed hot needles his eyes, and he was all too eager to bathe, eat, and go to bed, maybe with an ibuprofen or two somewhere along the way.  
  
The cold shower he took managed to cool him off, but it did little for the tension in his muscles, especially his sore arms and shoulders. He'd increase the temperature if it were any other time of year, but there was no way he was going to take a hot shower when the nights didn't dip below eighty. He dried off, yanked on his pajamas, and shuffled over to the dining room.  
  
Meals were a causal affair in his family, and they hadn't waited for him to start eating. Ashley, Abigail, and Jordan were also already in their pajamas. Josh preferred it that way, even if politer society called it bad manners, because family, in his opinion, was about being comfortable and open with one another. He took his seat next to Jordan and his father as his mom took his empty plate and doled out his portion, something she'd insisted on doing for him all twenty-five years of his life.  
  
"Hi guys," he said, accepting his plate and starting to eat.

There were his mother's mashed potatoes filled with roasted vegetables and a fat sausage link from the local butcher's. Josh's mouth watered-- they started selling the sausages about seven years ago, using some secret recipe developed by the youngest daughter. Dozens had tried and failed to replicate the odd, veal-like taste of the meat and the particular springiness of the casing, but none had succeeded, and, according to the rumors, not even the parents knew how it was made-- the daughter locked the doors to the back of the shop when she made it first thing in the morning. The whole thing was shrouded in mystery, but no one complained because it was undeniably delicious and kept the butchers in business.   
  
He glanced over at Jordan. He'd gotten through about half of his meal, but that was all. He was pushing a piece of asparagus from one side of his plate to another, his head propped up on his hand. His eyes stared vacantly at the dark wood of the table.  
  
Jordan's been like this for a while now, and it's bothered Josh since he first noticed it. His parents haven't discussed brought it up with him as far as Josh could tell, and maybe they hadn't even noticed it, but Josh most certainly did. Now was as good a time as any to air it out. He nudged Jordan's shoulder to get his attention.  
  
"Hey, dude, you seem bummed," he said.  
  
"I'm just tired," Jordan said, looking up at Josh and wow, yeah, he _did_ look exhausted.  
  
"But the semester's just started, is everything okay?" Josh asked, hoping he wasn't pushing Jordan too far. He was only fifteen, a full ten years younger than Josh, and the stress of being in high school tended to make people his age touchy.  
  
"It's fine," he said, turning back to his plate.  
  
Josh chewed his lip and decided not to say anything more. He's had enough stress today, and pissing off his little brother and starting an argument at the dinner table was the last thing he wanted to do.  
  
He scarfed down the rest of his dinner and helped his mother do the dishes before turning in for the night. Jordan, Abigail, and Ashley all had their own rooms, and his parents shared the master bedroom on the second floor. Josh had been relegated to the basement after Ashley was born seven years ago and he'd stayed down there ever since. It didn't feel like a rejection-- the basement was clean and they'd even fixed it up to make it feel more welcoming by painting the walls, laying down some real flooring, and adding some new electrical sockets so Josh could fill the place with lamps. It also stayed cooler during the summer and warmer in the winter, so the annoying hum of the air conditioning never kept him up like it did when he slept in the bedrooms. All in all, it was a good deal.  
  
Josh settled into his bed, feeling his back stretch as he laid down. The headache was mostly gone thanks to his meal and a glass of water, and the very faint throbbing that remained was easy to ignore. He reached over and turned off the bedside lamp, and fell asleep almost immediately, dreaming of nothing.

* * *

  
_Chk! Chk! Chk!_  
  
Josh's eyes cracked open the tiniest bit into pitch darkness. There was a weird tapping sound at the window. Raccoons.  
  
He turned his head away from his window and fell back asleep.  
  
_Shhhk!_  
  
Again?  
  
There was the squeak of the window opening, and the faint thud of a pair of shoes hitting the ground. The hairs on the back of Josh's neck rose and he bolted upright, fumbling for the lamp's switch and missing again and again as he looked around for the intruder which was definitely not a raccoon. The light coming from the street lamps outside wasn't enough for Josh to be able to detect any movement, and his panicked, harsh breathing masked the stranger's footfalls.

A sigh of breath and the faint warmth of another body's heat was his only warning before a hand slapped over his mouth, muffling his yelp. Josh thrashed out and his fingertips brushed against a pillar of cloth that he tried to shove away, but it always stayed just out of reach. He had no visual on his attacker, and all his other senses overcompensated, flooding his brain with useless information. Cool air rushed in through the open window and chilled his bare arms, the stranger used a different brand of laundry detergent from him, and there was something in a holster on his belt. The attacker's hand was soft, unusually so, but the force behind it was terribly strong, forcing him down backwards until he was on his back. The intruder climbed on top of him, pinning his legs down and trapping his arms beneath his knees.  
  
" _You,_ " the voice hissed, and the dark outline of a head loomed over him, a shadow on shadow, and Josh could almost demarcate his outline from the sheer resentment dripping from him.  
  
Josh made a pathetic sound under the hand as he struggled to free his arms. Was this a robbery? Why the hell would he come in through the basement window?  
  
The other hand reached back and a flash of steel caught the tiny shaft of light coming in through the narrow window. Was that-- that was a knife. That was what was in the holster.  
  
This wasn't a robbery. This maniac was going to kill him.

But for what? What did he do!?  
  
Full-blown panic set in as Josh bucked his whole body, sending his assailant tumbling to the floor with a _thump!_. Josh reached for the lamp at his bedside and switched it on, revealing a skinny-looking man in a black hoodie and a ski mask, squinting at the light.  
  
The knife had flown from the stranger's hands and clattered onto the floor next to Josh's night stand. They looked at the knife, then each other.  
  
Both of them leapt for it at once and ended up grabbing each other. The knife was quickly forgotten, kicked somewhere deep under Josh's bed in the scuffle. The man was smaller than him, but he was a far better wrestler-- Josh was more concerned with getting the fuck out of there than kicking this guy's ass.  
  
" _Stop it,_ " Josh snarled, praying to God that none of his family members heard the racket and went downstairs to see this. He didn't want this guy to hurt them.  
  
"Why should I?" he said, twisting Josh's arm behind his back, and, and-- that voice sounded familiar.  
  
Josh managed to wiggle out from underneath the guy and kneed him in the gut. He retched and stumbled back, and Josh grabbed his forearms and surged forward, pinning him to the ground. White, crooked teeth flashed from behind the mask in a grimace, and Josh caught a hint of tanned skin. Again, Josh was hit with the feeling that he knew this guy from somewhere, somewhen.  
  
"Who are you?" Josh demanded as the guy thrashed against his hold. He was surprised at how confident his words sounded-- he was terrified.  
  
"Someone who's come to give you what you deserve, you pervert," the stranger spat. "I know what you did with that kid."  
  
Josh paused. "What?" he asked, his grip slackening the tiniest bit.  
  
The man took advantage of his confusion and bucked upwards, knocking Josh onto his back. Now it was his turn to hold him down, and he didn't hesitate to wrap his hands around Josh's throat. White stars burst in Josh's vision and he struggled futilely to try and wrench those warm, soft hands off his neck.  
  
"Last week-- last week, you drove off with that kid in your truck," the man growled, his grip growing tighter and tighter. "He wasn't lost-- his mom was looking for him. I talked to her, even. What did you tell him, huh? That you'd take him to the police station if he did you a _favor?_ "  
  
Josh sputtered, half from oxygen deprivation and half from indignation. He knew what this guy was talking about: a little kid named Robert, about ten years old, coming up to his truck to ask where his parents were. He didn't know their phone numbers, and he'd wandered around the park for an hour looking for his mom with no success. Josh had offered to take him to the police station because it was getting late and he didn't trust that he'd be safe by himself. Robert said yes, and Josh drove him there promptly. He remembered offering Robert some ice cream, but he said he was lactose intolerant and had a bottle of blue Gatorade instead. Was this guy insinuating that Josh had touched him?  
  
"Answer me!" the guy hissed, rattling Josh so that the back of his head smacked against the floor.  
  
_I can't answer you if you're strangling me, you fucking moron,_ Josh thought through the throbbing pain in his head. He summoned up as much strength as he could in his oxygen-deprived muscles and punched the man in the nose.  
  
The guy loosened his grip and Josh kicked him away, going onto his hands and knees as he retched and coughed. Sweet, fresh air flowed into his lungs as he massaged the damaged cartilage of his throat. It was definitely going to bruise and he briefly wondered how he was going to hide it later.  
  
"I didn't do anything," Josh finally rasped, turning to look at the stranger, who was grasping his own face. "I took him to the police station because I didn't trust that he'd be safe by himself on the playground. I waited there in the lobby until someone called in asking about a missing kid. That was when his mom showed up and took him home. You can go to the police station and ask them about it, they have it on their records. What is your _problem?_ "  
  
"The _world_ is my problem," the guy said, his voice sounding comically nasal from his bleeding nose, "have you looked at the databases we have on registered sex offenders? The whole city is lit up in red! And yeah, there's female predators, but generally speaking, if you have a grown guy who likes hanging around kids, nine times out of ten, he's a pedophile. This has nothing to do with you personally, I don't even know you--"  
  
"Yeah, that's the thing," Josh said, his shock quickly morphing into indignation. "You don't know me. I actually do just like being nice to kids, and that doesn't make me a pervert, you self-righteous asshat."

He reached for the stranger, grabbing his mask and yanking it off. Josh froze when he saw his face.  
  
He knew it. He _fucking_ knew it.  
  
"You're the-- you're the guy," he said, pointing dumbly.  
  
_Next in line was a thin man in a black hoodie and black jeans that made him look even skinnier. His hands were tucked away in the kangaroo pocket of his hoodie and he chewed his lip as he looked at the menu plastered on the side of the van, stooping down to see the lower options. He didn't seem to notice that the kid in front of him had already left, and Josh cleared his throat, making the man startle._  
  
_"Oh! Sorry," he said, edging to the window._  
  
_Up close, Josh could see the bags under his eyes and the stress zit next to his nose._  
  
_"Could I get a scoop of pistachio?" he asked, voice cracking on the last syllable. "On a waffle cone?"_  
  
_Josh's heart sank. He'd just thrown out the last carton of pistachio after it had gone bad, and decided not to carry it anymore because offering it was just a formality at this point. There were a million other cool flavors he could have room for to sell instead. Who the hell ever bought pistachio?_  
  
_This guy did, apparently._  
  
_"Uh, we don't-- we don't carry pistachio," Josh said, turning red._  
  
_"You have the sticker for it right there," the guy said, pointing at the side of the truck, completely out of Josh's range of vision._  
  
_He didn't look like the type to start pointless arguments with store workers, but Josh wasn't worried about_ that _\-- he was worried that the guy was going to burst into tears. His bottom lip was actually wobbling. He was probably having a shitty day to begin with, and Josh didn't want a lack of pistachio to be his last straw._  
  
_"Uh, listen, dude, I'm really sorry," Josh said, watching the guy anxiously knit his fingers together. "We have pecan, that's a nut. Or Blue Moon, house specialty."_  
  
_"Every ice cream place in Ohio has a secret Blue Moon recipe," he groused, though there was a little smile teasing at the corner of his chapped lips. The knot in Josh's chest didn't unwind, but it did stop tightening-- smiling was a good sign, right?_  
  
_"So you'll take it?" he asked._  
  
_"Yeah. Two scoops, though, in a cup."_  
  
_Josh resisted the urge to sigh in relief and went to the back to get him his order. He scooped the pale blue ice cream into the polka-dotted paper cup and stuck a spoon in it, wrapping it in a napkin before handing it down to the guy, which was easier than handing it to a kid because he was a good three heads taller than the average seven year old._  
  
_The guy pulled a rumpled five-dollar bill from his hoodie pocket and told him to keep the change. Josh watched as he stalked off to one of the benches and sat down alone, curling his legs up as he ate the Blue Moon in small, careful bites, staring off into space._  
  
_That wasn't so bad._  
  
"I was watching you," the guy said, snatching the mask back to soak up the blood coming from his nose. "I usually don't go after people without criminal records, but I was suspicious and I wanted to look at you up close."  
  
Josh sat back. The pain in his neck had faded, though his throat clicked when he swallowed.  
  
"And what did you think of me?" he asked.  
  
"Wasn't sure."  
  
Josh studied the guy's face. There was none of the awkwardness or vulnerability he remembered from their first meeting. The soft lines of his face had hardened into cold ferocity and suspicion under the white, harsh light of the lamp.  
  
"Do you do this a lot?" Josh asked.  
  
"What."  
  
"Stab pedophiles? Or whatever it is you do to them?"  
  
"Should I tell you?"  
  
"Sure. I won't tell the cops."  
  
Josh thought back on the 'missing' section of the morning newspaper. A lot of kids went missing, but so did a large number of adults, more than he remembered there being back when he was in LA during his ill-fated attempt at attaining a college degree. He'd always privately wondered if there was someone, or perhaps _many_ someones behind the discrepancy, though he'd never bothered asking the police (or anyone else) over something that was most likely a statistical fallacy.  
  
"Yeah," the guy said, running his hand over his head. "I do. I get rid of them. Not telling you any more."  
  
"That's fair," Josh said. "At least I know I wasn't crazy thinking that there were a lot of people going missing."  
  
"Not enough."  
  
"You're right."  
  
"You think so?" he asked, his eyebrows lifting.  
  
Josh paused, and let himself think about it, finally allowing himself to get angry. He felt years of frustration rising up from somewhere deep and bitter in his gut like vomit. He never let himself dwell on those feelings for long, so they were still unnamed and shapeless and tangled with a thousand other unrelated thoughts and wishes. He'd never told anyone else: not his family, not any of his friends, not his therapist. So why should he tell a complete stranger who tried to kill him and, even worse, liked pistachio ice cream?  
  
No. That was exactly why he should tell him. This guy couldn't judge him, even if their philosophies turned out to be totally irreconcilable, because what else could they do? They'd already admitted too much. They had no choice but to accept each other, and they could go in peace with that knowledge. Josh opened his mouth to speak.  
  
"I mean, yeah," Josh said. "I see pedophiles and shitty parents running around everywhere and I can't do a thing about it. I go to the police and they say I don't have enough evidence for them to actually do anything. All I can do is watch and try to keep the kids safe when I can. But I-- I hate them so much. Enough to do what you do."  
  
The man took a moment to absorb all his words. Finally, he nodded, wiping the blood off his face with the mask again.  
  
"I don't know if I believe you, uh," he began, stuttering when he realized he didn't know Josh's name.  
  
"Josh," he supplied.  
  
"Yeah, Josh. You could just be a really good liar for all I know. The worst people are. But if you're being honest, then it would be a mistake to get rid of you. Time will tell."  
  
"So we're putting the murder on hold?" Josh asked, a nervous grin growing on his face.  
  
The man smiled back, showing off his crooked teeth. "Yep. Until further notice," he said.  
  
The man stood up and dusted himself off. "Can I have my knife?" he asked, holding his hand out.  
  
"Sure," Josh said, praying to God he wasn't making a huge mistake giving the weapon back to him.  
  
He crouched and reached under the bed and plucked the knife from the dusty floor. It was a carving knife with a black handle; there was nothing special about it, and more than a few years old. With a sunken stomach, he wondered how many people Tyler had killed with it. He grasped the blade and handed it back to the man handle-first.  
  
"Thanks," the guy said, wrapping it in the soiled mask and shoving the bundle into his hoodie pocket.  
  
He started for the window, and Josh realized that he never got this guy's name.  
  
"Wait," he called, and the man paused.  
  
"I never got your name," Josh said. "You have mine, so it's only fair I get yours."  
  
"It's Tyler," he said, his back still facing Josh. "Just Tyler."  
  
Josh nodded. "Okay. Bye, Tyler."  
  
Tyler climbed onto Josh's chair, then his desk, and then started crawling out through the low window set near the ceiling. His legs wiggled and kicked wildly as he pulled himself through, but he never knocked anything off his table.  
  
Tyler stuck his arm back through the opening and waved.  
  
"Bye, Josh. Don't make me regret letting you live," he said with a smile, and disappeared. Josh wasn't sure if that was supposed to be a joke or a threat.  
  
He heard Tyler dust himself off, board some unseen vehicle, and drive away, leaving Josh feeling vaguely unreal with a sore neck and the deep exhaustion that comes after narrowly escaping death.  
  
His door creaked open.  
  
"Josh?" his father asked, yawning and rubbing his eyes. "What was all that noise?"

* * *

He's watching Josh like he said he would. It's not the first time he's backed off and took the time to gather more data, but many times he finds, much to his disappointment, that it was ultimately unnecessary. He's a good judge of character, and knows a predator when he sees one, smells one. Still, he hopes that Josh is true to his word. It's shallow, he knows, but he doesn't want to kill Josh because _he's just too pretty_. The feeling would be like stomping on a fresh blanket of snow, leaving ugly footprints on his creamy skin. He remembers the shock he felt when he first saw him up close: the black bow tie, the delicate motions of his hands, the shiny black curls peeping out from under that funny paper hat.  
  
_But none of it will matter if he turns out to be bad,_ he tells himself. _No one who hurts children is beautiful._  
  
Still, if it comes to it, he'll do it as quickly and artfully as possible.  
  
The Duns' ice cream truck spends four hours at the playground. It's plenty of time for him to judge Josh's interactions with the kids-- do his eyes linger? Does he grasp? Does he leer?  
  
Tyler sits on his bench, pretending to read a book. He itches the collar of his short-sleeved button up, off-white and patterned with tiny pink roses. He's in disguise for two good reasons: so Josh doesn't recognize him, and so that he doesn't die of heat stroke wearing all black. It seems to be working, though that might simply be because Josh is swamped with customers.  
  
The kid he's currently serving is digging frantically through his pockets. He must not have enough money, and a stab of pity goes through Tyler at the sight of it. Josh reaches for his tip jar, the one Tyler remembers seeing when he tried and failed to get a scoop of pistachio from the truck, and fishes out a dollar bill, giving the kid a thumbs-up and his cookies and cream sundae.  
  
Huh. That was nice of him. It makes something in Tyler's heart hurt, and not in the way it usually does.  
  
He tries not to let it get to his head. A lot of predators seem unusually kind to lure kids in and gain adults' trust. That's why so many of them were teachers or family friends or youth pastors.  
  
Or ice cream truck drivers.  
  
Adoration and repulsion swirl around in his gut with equal violence in a disorienting, heaving mass. Tyler can't look at him anymore.  
  
He rises from the bench and starts heading home. The streets are far too crowded and the sun is too hot in the day, and he's unpleasantly reminded why he prefers working the night shift. He feels too visible in all this light, every awkward misstep and every stuttered word on display for the whole world to see. His arms feel naked without his hoodie. He knows that acting nervous will only draw attention to himself, so he forces himself to keep his back straight and his stride even, even if it's agonizing to do so.  
  
Josh's park is only a few blocks from his favorite convenience store. He picks up a bottle of water (he's tempted to reach for the Red Bull, but he's going to have a busy night and he needs to fall asleep soon). The water cools him off and he completes the rest of the journey home without any trouble.  
  
His apartment is cluttered. It's not a mess, but it's full of things. That's not by any fault of his own-- he lives in a studio so cramped that would be impossible to turn his body if it were any smaller. Greenpeace would be up in arms over his living conditions if he were just a little cuter and fuzzier. It's less than three hundred square feet and his bathroom door is touching his bed, which is touching his minifridge. He doubts that any of it is legal, and anyone else would take on a roommate just to be able to afford a larger space, but he couldn't risk his secrecy just for a few more square feet. Besides, he was hardly ever home; between his job as a security guard and his other career as a, uh, _public service worker_ , he was only ever here to sleep. His eyes were closed when he slept, too, so it wasn't like he could see how pathetic his quarters were.  
  
Tyler draws the blackout curtains over the one window in his unit and he's blissfully entombed in darkness. He collapses onto his bare, unframed mattress and pulls the sheet over himself, still clothed. He's going to be up in a few hours anyway.  
  
He dreams about Josh. Not about killing him; his dreams are seldom painted in blood. He's sitting in one of the amphitheaters at the Columbus Cultural Arts Center, the place he guards at night. There's music playing, indistinct but he knows it's beautiful, and the whole theater is dark save for the blinding lights at the front. They reflect off the pale, polished wood of the stage and cast the audience's faces in a golden glow. Beside him is Josh. Like the music of the orchestra, he can't actually describe him in any amount of detail, but he can feel his warmth, indistinct but definitely present and gentle and soft. A moment of lucidity hits him when he wonders when he'd last felt so close to someone.  
  
He wakes up feeling wistful and blissful and dumb, and tries to push it out of his mind as he gets ready for work.  
  
He's never actually been inside the auditoriums of the Cultural Center-- he's only assigned to patrol the halls and the outside of the building. Sometimes there are shows late at night, usually operas or weird art exhibits, and they're all behind closed doors. Tyler's always wanted to look inside, but he's never had the money or the time off. But that's fine. He doesn't do well in crowds anyway.  
  
He spends a lot of time thinking about his next targets. This part of town is safe, and in the five years he's worked as a guard, he's only seen trouble once with a few delinquent kids smoking weed behind the building. That wasn't even an issue-- they went quietly when Tyler promised he wouldn't call the cops. Weed was fine. Those kids were probably going through something and they needed the freedom. God knows he did when he was younger.  
  
Tyler's list of future targets is probably longer than the guest list for tonight's event. There are a heartbreaking and infuriating number of convicted sex criminals living in Columbus. They weren't allowed to live near schools and playgrounds, but it's rarely enough to keep anyone safe. No one could feasibly track all of their movements, after all, and it would be unconstitutional to do so. Tyler could hardly get rid of them fast enough.  
  
Tyler nearly bumps into someone, jolting him out of his thoughts. There was a screening of some ditzy, family-friendly play tonight and it finished at ten thirty, and now all of the audience was leaving. Tyler realized he had spent nearly an hour wandering around in a daze. Sheepish, he retreats until his back is to the wall as the people stream out of the theater and into the lobby, then out the door. There's a peculiar mix of suits and ties and more unconventional choices of clothing. He's fairly certain he's spotted a toga at one point.  
  
Their voices all bleed together into a rolling cacophony echoing off the pristine walls and high ceiling, but one voice in particular stands out. Tyler's ears prick up as he searches the crowd for its source.  
  
There. Twenty feet away, there's an older gentleman in a tan suit and a dark blue tie-- Warren Franklin Gardner. He's in his fifties, and he has a full head of salt-and-pepper hair. Blue eyes, about five foot ten, and laughing with a woman of a similar age, perhaps a little younger, with a little girl at her side in a fluffy black and blue polka-dotted dress, standing out like a bright light in a sea of muted colors. Tyler pays close attention to Gardner's eyes. They wander down to the little girl, and stay there for longer than Tyler's comfortable with, but the mother doesn't seem to pick up on it. Disgust coils up in his gut. Tyler knows what he's done before, and he'll stop him from doing it again if it's the last thing he does.  
  
They start walking to the main exit, and Tyler chews his lip as he takes off his cap and stuffs it in his back pocket. He's definitely going to get in trouble for walking out on the job for the second time this month, and he doesn't even have an excuse this time, but he doesn't care about that right now. He has a few hundred dollars saved up to keep him afloat between jobs, and he figured it's enough because there are always openings for the night shift at any 24-hour establishment. They'll take him, even if he's twitchy and has big, buggy eyes (they haven't been cute or doelike for a while) and a shifty aura, because no one else is willing to do the job.   
  
He glances around, making sure none of his coworkers could see him before he slips into the hedges lining the long stairway to take off his shirt, folding it over his arm and exposing his white undershirt beneath. He takes off his walkie-talkie as well, muting it and leaving it behind a bench as he spots Gardner in the parking lot, completely alone. From what Tyler's gathered, he's only started seeing that lady about a month ago, so they weren't driving together just yet. Perfect.  
  
Tyler memorizes the license plate and model of the car before he races off to the staff section of the parking lot and gets into his car. He follows the car out of the lot and trails behind far enough so that Gardner couldn't see his license plate or any other distinguishing features. Not that it really matters, of course, because Columbus is a big city full of cars and it's hard to be sure if someone is following you. Also, he's going to die very soon.  
  
Gardner is heading to the address Tyler picked off an online map. He's grateful that sex offenders are required by law to have their addresses registered, or his job would be so much harder than it already is. In all honesty, he's surprised more people haven't taken up this career-- why go after harmless young women or vulnerable prostitutes when you could take care of the real issues at hand?  
  
Tyler thinks back on what Josh said. _I can't do a thing about it. But I hate them so much. Enough to do what you do._  
  
Josh could-- Josh could be so much more. A thick lump in his throat forms as he imagines what he'd look like soaked in blood and moonlight. All that starched white clothing, his immaculate apron, alabaster skin, crooked paper hat, all of it stained and torn and rumpled with the effort of protecting their world. How could he get Josh to understand that he could do what he did? How could he get closer to Josh, to clutch that pale hand, to feel his warm breath on his cheek?  
  
He almost loses sight of his target when he turns a corner. Tyler shakes the thoughts out of his mind and reaches over to the passenger's seat to grab a loose CD instead, popping it into the port near the console and turning the volume up.  
  
_All you have is your fire,_  
_and the place you need to reach._  
_Don't you ever tame your demons,_  
_always keep them on a leash._  
  
He hums along for the whole trip.  
  
Gardner eventually makes it to his neighborhood. It's near downtown, far from any public schools or playgrounds. It's a nice place to be, though, and he lives in a townhouse, not an apartment complex. This is going to be almost too easy.  
  
Tyler circles around the block a few times as Garner parks and heads inside. He parks on the opposite side of the block and gets ready. He grabs his red backpack from the back seat and inspects it-- all of his tools are there, save for the crowbar, which is too big to fit inside. He notices that some of the doodles on the straps are fading. Tyler takes out a Sharpie from the glovebox and idly touches them up. He's in no hurry.  
  
After about half an hour, Tyler shoulders the bag and exits his shitty beige sedan. It's so old that it doesn't chirp when he locks it with the fob; it flashes its lights twice and makes a sound like a drowning robin before going dark. The metal tools bang and clank as they jostle around inside the bag, and Tyler adjusts his shoulder to mitigate the noise and discomfort. He should invest in a duffle bag or one of those rolling suitcases to save his spine once he had the money.   
  
He comes to a stop in front of the townhouse. The curtains are drawn and the lights inside are off. Gardner is either showering or sleeping at this point, unless he's one of those weirdos who sit in the dark in their living rooms for hours at a time. Tyler does that all the time. It's great.  
  
There isn't much of a yard to speak of, but there is an alley and Tyler slips through the dank passage to get to the back door. Fewer people will notice the break-in (not that the people in this town would care even if they did notice).  
  
Tyler hops the fence with ease. The lights on this side are off as well, and he stumbles forward in pitch darkness to find the back door. It's locked, but that's never stopped him. He pulls on a pair of latex gloves and picks the lock in under fifteen minutes. He enters the house in complete silence.  
  
It's dark inside, and Tyler can't hear the shower running, but he can hear snoring coming from further inside the house. His soft-soled sneakers don't make a sound against the rug-covered floors as he creeps in. It's hard to make out any details in the darkness, but Tyler can see that Gardner's pretty well off, if the nice location didn't give that away. He can faintly see his reflection in a glass case filled with old athletic awards from college. He doesn't know the specifics of his education or what it was that he studied, but it was certainly enough that the companies here certainly thought he was worth a thousand miles of travel and the inky black stain on his record.    
  
But people never change.  
  
Tyler sneaks through the dining room, the kitchen, the living room, and comes across the hall that leads to one bathroom and two bedrooms. The door that's open leads to an empty room, and he can hear snoring from the closed one. Carefully, Tyler sets his backpack down on the ground and takes out his crowbar and a roll of duct tape. He's not sure if Gardner's deep asleep yet, but it won't matter. Tyler's faster than he is tall or strong.  
  
The door is silent as he turns the knob and pushes it open. The lights are off, and he can see a lone figure under the sheets. Tyler grins to himself as he steps toward the bed, taking the crowbar in both hands and raising the iron bar over his head.  
  
_Crack!_  
  
Tyler can feel his ribs collapse under the force of the blow. Gardner lets out a hideous sound, eyes gleaming in the dark as they bulge in their sockets.  
  
_It's time to wake up,_ he snarls to himself.  
  
Tyler tosses the crowbar aside and turns on the bedside lamp. The room's filled with a golden, comforting glow, revealing the terror on Gardner's face. A cold sweat has broken out on his face, giving him a greasy, deranged look.  
  
"Hey," Tyler says, ignoring the stabbing pain in his eyes at the sudden brightness to leer at him.  
  
Gardner looks up at him with wild eyes. His breathing comes heavy through his nose, and his chest heaves laboriously, stuttering every time his lungs press against his broken ribs. He won't be doing much screaming.  
  
"I know you can't really talk, given the situation with your ribs," Tyler begins, "but I just wanna ask you something."  
  
"Who-- who are you?" Gardner wheezes, completely ignoring him, and there's an odd rattle behind his voice. Tyler wants to step on his throat and stop it.  
  
"Does that really matter?" Tyler asks. "Like, is that going to get you out of this if you know my name, like Rumpelstiltskin or something?"  
  
He leans over Gardner and presses his hand into his chest. Feebly, he kicks, but it stops when he presses harder. Tyler laughs and lets go, grabbing the roll of tape to tear out about a foot's worth.

"What are... what are you doing?" Gardner manages to ask.  
  
"Y'know, we always live in denial," he says as he tugs the blankets away to expose his legs. "Not of anything existential, though I guess it is, ultimately-- anyways, we always think we'd be strong enough to hold our own in a fight, or in a zombie apocalypse or whatever. That we won't ever freeze, or that the pain won't be too much, or that we won't feel scared and we'd kick ass, or at least be able to run away. But look at you."  
  
He presses Gardner's ankles together and tapes them, then moves up to get his arms. Gardner continues his resistance, but the pain in his chest and the tape on his legs keeps him from making much progress. Tyler crosses one arm over the other, less like a corpse in a casket and more like a mummy in a sarcophagus. He makes sure to bind them uncomfortably tight. He sets the tape aside and leans over the bed, resting the width of his forearm on Gardner's chest.  
  
"Can't fight, can't move-- man, you can't even breathe like this. It's not right, isn't it? Not fair."  
  
Tyler releases his chest and Gardner hisses, cries, tries curling over on his side, but Tyler grabs his shoulder and flips him onto his back as easy as you please.  
  
"Look at me-- fucking _look at me_ , dude. Do you remember that little girl from 2009?" he asks, not waiting for Warren to nod before continuing. "You said she said yes. You said she wasn't scared. But you're scared now, aren't you? The same thing's happening to you, and you don't have the excuse of being seven. You've got a good thirty pounds on me. You boxed in college. But here we are."  
  
Tyler's monologue doesn't seem to be getting through to Warren. He's trying to wiggle out off the tape and trying to edge off of the bed, sniveling and crying and good God, Tyler just wants to kill him now because he's even more annoying than a screaming baby in a restaurant or one of those neurotic, bug-eyed chihuahuas. But he's got a point to make, and he needs Gardner to understand that he's not crazy.  
  
"Please don't--" Gardner begs. "I swear I've changed--"  
  
Tyler starts laughing, bitterly amused, and the abscess that's been gnawing at him for nearly two decades festers a little more.  
  
"That's what they all say," he snaps, grabbing the crowbar again.  
  
He points the beak of the bar down and raises it above his head, biting his lip as he prepares to swing. He brings it down with a solid _thwack!_ , burying the pointed tip inside Gardner's innards.  
  
Blood sprays out of Gardner's torso and mouth, and Tyler tastes iron and salt as an errant drop flies into his mouth. That annoying, pretentious part of him can't help but think it's poetic-- the tastes of divine providence and protection spouting from something so perverse and slavering. He scoffs at himself and dismisses the thought, bringing the crowbar down again and letting his hindbrain regain control. His fury, his violence-- none of it is poetic or beautiful or worthy of the sophomoric analysis of self-important English teachers. This is him restoring his shallow, human conception of justice in the absence (or betrayal) of a higher power. It's petty, and he knows it, but he lets the rage consume him anyway. How else can he pass the time?  
  
The hole in Gardner's torso is widening, and he bludgeons him again, aiming for the dark meat of his kidney when he spots it. Tiny flecks of burst organs and half-digested matter mix with the blood as he hits him again and again and Tyler grins at the sight. Gardner's eyes have rolled back in their sockets and he's not making any sounds, but Tyler knows he's alive-- he can see his pink lungs quivering at the top of his abdominal cavity.  
  
It's another three hits before he gets tired of it.  
  
"You weren't interested in the woman, were you," Tyler says, panting. "You were after her daughter."  
  
He drops the crowbar on the floor with a clang and sits down on the bed near the growing pool of blood. Gardner makes a strange wheezing sound, and Tyler wipes the viscera off his own face.  
  
"It's people like you who get away with everything, you know that? I knew a guy just like you when I was ten. When they caught him, he promised he changed, and everyone believed it because they needed to believe it, you know? He had the education, the career, the skin-- if they admitted he was guilty, then they'd have to confront the possibility that they might not be as exceptional as they like to think they are. And they didn't want to do that. So they let him go. You know who finally took care of it, Warren?"  
  
Warren's breath hitches, and Tyler takes that as a 'no'. He jabs his thumb into his chest.  
  
"Me," he says. "It took me six years, but the second I got big enough and the second he got old and weak enough, I got him. It wasn't clean, or-- or easy, but I knew what I was doing-- I'd planned it for years, you see, and I had a friend helping me out. We're still in touch, actually, and that's who you're going to once I take your head off. Don't worry, something good can be made of you yet."  
  
Gardner's eyes widen, and then they stay that way. He's dead.  
  
It's anticlimactic. It always is. Frustrated, Tyler jams his thumb into Gardner's right eye. It bursts under his finger and he digs his digit deeper into the socket, feeling the warmth of the white sclera turn to mush around his gloved hand. That feels a little better.  
  
Tyler takes his finger out of Gardner's eye, wipes the viscera on his pant leg, and grabs his backpack from the entrance. He takes out the hatchet and turns it over in his hands, stalking back to the bed and tugging Gardner's corpse further down the bed so Tyler can get a clear cut without the headboard or the nightstand getting in the way. He raises the axe above his head and chops it off in one clean cut. He discards the hatchet next to the crowbar and fetches the plastic bags. There's a small two-gallon bag for the head, and a larger tarp for the body. The body will go to the butcher and he'll keep the head and fuck around with it before he gets bored of it (or it gets too smelly) and he chucks it into the trash, mummified in saran wrap and hidden in a bag of real garbage to avoid detection.  
  
He drops the head into the small bag and zips it, squeezing the air out so it won't pop open and leak everywhere. He puts it on the nightstand and prepares the body. The butcher isn't going to be happy about all the guts getting everywhere, especially since some of the fecal matter got out, but whatever. Cooking is a thing. His limbs, chest, and back are all intact and can easily be decontaminated.  
  
Tyler spreads the tarp out on the floor, then goes to the other side of the bed and pushes the corpse until it rolls off the bed, hitting the floor with a loud thud. He goes back around and wraps the body like a grisly burrito or a really nasty cocoon and then tapes it shut with the duct tape. Then he gets the roll of saran wrap and wraps the whole thing in two layers of it to prevent leakage. Easy.  
  
Now he wanders off to the attached bathroom to find some towels-- he needs to clean off his tools, and more importantly, himself. He confronts his own reflection in the mirror when he turns on the light. He's a mess, the way he usually is after he gets rid of someone. There's gore all over his face and in his hair, and the soiled state of his black shirt is given away by its stickiness. A shower would do him good.  
  
Tyler takes off his shoes and strips, turning on the sink to rinse off his clothes, using the liquid hand soap to clean off as much blood and gore as he can. It's not perfect, but it'll do, and washing his clothes by hand is probably more effective than using the communal washing machine and dryer in his apartment complex, which was probably older than Tyler and still hasn't been replaced by the landlord. He wrings them out and hangs them on the empty towel racks before turning on the shower. It takes about ten minutes for the water to heat up in his own studio, but here, the water is steaming almost instantly. The water pressure is way better, too. He rinses off his gloves and peels them off, carefully laying them down on the counter and making sure he won't leave fingerprints anywhere important. The police are apathetic, but that doesn't mean he's invincible.  
  
Tyler sighs as he steps under the warm stream. The tension in his muscles melt away as he washes the blood off his skin and uses the good shampoo, and he feels relaxed for the first time tonight. Man, he could stay in here forever.  
  
He eventually forces himself out of the shower and dries himself using the softest towel he's ever rubbed on his sorry body. He wraps himself in the bathrobe (it's a little too long), puts the soggy gloves back on, and takes his wet clothes. A foray into the hallway reveals the laundry room and the empty dryer, which he tosses his clothes into and selects 'quick dry' before wandering off to the kitchen. It's a little bare, which is understandable for a single man who spends most of his day at work, but there is a bag of half-eaten caramel corn that he snatches up like a hungry bird.  
  
Tyler snoops through Gardner's house as he finishes the caramel corn and waits for his clothes to finish drying. There's nothing of note, though he does find a bizarre fetish magazine in the bottom of his sock drawer. It's eleven thirty when he gets his clothes back on, nice and warm, and he goes back outside to bring the car around so he won't have to drag the body far. No one's outside, and all the lights are off, so he takes the body out through the front door, letting it drag as it bumps down the steps, and he tosses it into the trunk of his car. The head goes into the back seat, right next to his cleaned tools. The bathrobe, which he's decided to keep, covers both.  
  
He drives off in silence, leaving the little house. It's nearly midnight, but the butcher stays up late. He'll drop the body off at the back of the shop and then he'll... go home?  
  
That doesn't sound fun. He's got at least six more hours before he starts feeling tired, and he's not in the mood to go back to work. He'd be hard pressed to find an excuse for his disappearance, anyway. If he just doesn't come back, they'll terminate him quietly, and that's the best way to go.  
  
So where should he go?  
  
The idea pops into his head almost immediately. Josh. He wants to apologize for the break-in. He's still on Tyler's watch list, of course, but the longer he watches him, the more Tyler grows confident that he can be trusted. He hasn't reported Tyler to the police, after all, and he did admit that he wanted to do what Tyler did, so maybe all he needed was a sign of goodwill to get Josh fully on his side. He might not get him to ever fully participate, like Jenna, but just sharing this part of his life with someone else and being accepted for it would be enough. It wasn't like this whole vigilante/serial killer thing was on par with being in accounting, after all. _Oh, an icebreaker? Hi, my name's Tyler Joseph, my favorite ice cream flavor is vanilla, and I've killed twenty people in the last eight years!_  
  
Yeah, good luck getting that to work.  
  
Tyler made a mental note to get some nicer paper for the head at the butcher's. It was the closest thing he could get to gift wrap.


	2. The Blood of Monsters

All day, Josh couldn't shake off the feeling that someone was watching him. It was like every distant figure, every indiscriminate shape and stranger he made eye contact with was Tyler studying him. The worst part was knowing that he had every right to feel that way-- Tyler had stalked him for what could have been months without him ever realizing it.  
  
Still, that was no excuse to go home early. The heat lingered long after the sun set, and it was past ten by the time he finally turned in for the night. He took off his apron and hung it up. Next went his paper hat and he ran a hand through his hair to let his head breathe. He loosened his bowtie, undid the top button of his shirt, and stretched before he sat down in the driver's seat and headed back home.  
  
The lights of his house were still on when he pulled up to the driveway at about ten thirty. He locked up the truck and headed for home.  
  
There was an upsetting scene waiting for him when he opened the door. Jordan and his parents were sitting at the dining table, and his eyes were red with tears. The three of them paused when the door creaked open, and Josh awkwardly waved hello to them.  
  
"What's going on?" he asked, shutting the door behind him and locking it.  
  
"Jordan's failing his math class," his mother said, waving a report card at him.  
  
"And his history class, and PE, and--"  
  
"I'm sorry--"  
  
"'Sorry' doesn't fix anything, Jordan!"  
  
"Hey, hey, hey," Josh said, crossing the living room in his shoes to get between his brother and his angry parents. "Don't yell at him. Something's going on if he's failing all his classes, and that might not be his fault, okay? Please don't be mad at him."  
  
"We're not saying it's his fault," his dad said, "he's just not telling us what's wrong."  
  
Jordan bit his lip.

"I, uh, I'm--"  
  
Jordan couldn't finish his sentence, and a tear tracked down his face. Concern tightened into a painful knot in his chest that swallowing couldn't undo.  
  
"It's okay, Jordan," Josh said. "You can tell us what's wrong, we're not gonna judge you."  
  
"It's not a big deal," Jordan said. "I'm just dumb."  
  
He got up from his seat and darted upstairs.  
  
"Jordan!" his mother called, and his father put his hand on her shoulder.  
  
"I'm sorry you had to see that, Josh," she said. "I just don't know what's gotten into him."  
  
"Me neither," Josh said, eyes lingering on the staircase.  
  
"Could you go talk to him?" his father asked.  
  
"Yeah, just, uh, not right now. He's still upset-- I don't want to scare him more, you know?"  
  
"That's fine, Josh," he said. "Just get it done at some point. I'm worried about him. But enough about Jordan-- you need to go to sleep, son."  
  
"Alright, Dad. Goodnight."  
  
He left his parents to murmur between themselves as he went upstairs to shower. The door to Jordan's room was closed and probably locked-- he wasn't even going to bother trying to get through to him tonight. Abigail and Ashley's doors were also closed; they probably fell asleep a long time ago. Josh sighed and shut the bathroom door.  
  
The warm water made him sleepy, and he drowsily washed the sweat and sugar off his skin and brushed his teeth, stumbling down two flights of stairs to the basement. He flicked on the lights and rummaged through his drawers for his pajamas, dumping his towel on the floor and getting changed, pulling on a pair of sweatpants and finding a soft, worn-out shirt to wear.  
  
Josh's shirt was halfway on when something thumped on the windowpane. Josh froze, ears pricking as he dropped his shirt, his eyes darting to the windows to look for the source of the sound. The pounding came again, two beats in quick, deliberate succession, and that was no passing animal or hallucination: someone was outside.  
  
Josh stepped backwards, preparing to dart upstairs when the window swung open and a shadowy head peered in. Josh yelped, tripping over his discarded towel and tumbling onto his behind. Much to his surprise, the person waved and held up a finger in a shushing gesture before ducking out and entering the basement feet-first, revealing a shyly grinning Tyler.  
  
"Yo," he said, standing on tiptoe to grab something from outside the window. "I got something for you."  
  
Before Josh could even say hello, Tyler produced a small white bag from outside and eagerly handed it to him. Suspicious but too afraid to resist, Josh stepped forward and took the package. It felt oddly damp. He parted the plastic and found a large, round something wrapped in thick brown paper and bound with string. He shed the bag and started to untie the string and _oh what the fuck--_  
  
"Woah!" he shouted, dropping the severed head on the floor.  
  
"Shh!" Tyler said, eyes darting to the door. "I just wanted to show you. It's not gonna hurt you."  
  
"Oh my God," Josh groaned as the head rolled to a stop at the foot of his dresser.  
  
"Neat, huh?"  
  
Josh tore his eyes away from the head to Tyler. He was smiling like a little kid giving his parents a shitty macaroni portrait, and Josh realized, really realized, that Tyler was _one fucking hundred percent insane._ A panicked grin oozed up Josh's face when he realized that the head on the floor could have been him, and might still be him in the near future if he didn't choose his next words very, very carefully.  
  
"Yeah," he said, trying not to gag when he finally noticed the smell. "Where, uh, where did you get that?"  
  
Tyler seemed pleased that he asked.  
  
"Warren F. Gardner, forty-seven years old, born in Mississippi and moved here two years ago," he said. "Ten years ago he was arrested and charged with oral sex with a minor, and he served three years for it. There wasn't anything else after that, but I noticed that he'd taken an interest in this one single mom with a kid that's, like, ten or so? Anyways, I don't think she or her kid know about that part of his history, so I took care of it for them."     
  
"... Oh."  
  
Alright, that kind of justified it, he guessed. Josh wasn't going to lie and say he hasn't thought of doing something like this before, but that was just a wild, self-indulgent fantasy. This was the real deal. _Tyler_ was the real deal.  
  
"Think of this as a-- uh, like an olive branch," Tyler said, softly kicking the head as he knitted his fingers together. "Like a 'sorry I tried to kill you because I thought you were a pedophile' apology letter, or box of chocolates or something."  
  
Josh would have _strongly_ preferred a letter or box of chocolates instead of... this. But he didn't dare say that out loud. Did Tyler want him to keep it?    
  
"Th-- thanks," Josh said, trying and failing to keep the abject horror off his face as his fear mounted.  
  
Tyler's grin fell.  
  
"You hate it," he said, voice small and disappointed.  
  
Josh spluttered helplessly as his panicked brain tried to form a response that didn't involve running out of the room screaming.  
  
"That-- that's not it!" he said, eyes beginning to water. "I mean, it is, you just handed me a severed head, I've never-- I--"  
  
Josh hugged himself with one arm and wiped the tears off his face with the other, turning away to avoid looking at the severed head, and more importantly, Tyler's face. He hated that he always cried when he was upset, it felt so immature, but what was he going to do? Hit Tyler? That wouldn't solve anything either.  
  
He heard Tyler inhale to speak, and Josh braced himself for the inevitable.  
  
"Oh no, am I coming on too strong?" Tyler asked, sounding very concerned. "Should I have just given you a card or something?"  
  
Josh looked up at Tyler in shock, tears still running down his face. He seemed genuinely rueful that he'd upset Josh. Was this some serial killer trick?  
  
"What?" he asked, dumbfounded.  
  
"I thought you'd like it," Tyler said, rubbing the back of his head. "You said you'd thought about, you know, killing predators and everything, and I gave this to you 'cause I wanted to-- I wanted to let you know that I trusted you with what I did. I watched you some more today, and I think my initial judgement of you was wrong. Maybe. I'm like ninety percent sure and that's good enough."  
  
"So you're--"  
  
"Inviting you," Tyler said, a fanatic glint growing in his eyes. "You understand the pain, don't you? The humiliation. And you carry it with you for your whole life, I mean, the counselors always say they'll help you enough so that you don't have to think about it all the time, but look at all the good that did."  
  
Wait, what?  
  
Now Tyler was the one who looked close to tears. Josh slowly put the pieces together.  
  
"Tyler, uh, whatever happened to you, it didn't happen to me," Josh said. "I mean, not that I don't get it, but I don't understand it on the personal level that you've got going on. And if we're gonna be honest, I don't mind that you're doing this because you're keeping kids safe, but I don't think it's, like, healthy. I mean, your first concern when I reacted badly to the head was wondering if you came on too strong. Normal people just don't give severed heads to other people as gifts. Even if they're trying to initiate them into their murder club."  
  
"It's not murder," Tyler spat, "if they're less than human."  
  
"That's fair," Josh said, getting a little uneasy.

Now, Josh being upset or angry was fine because he knew he was no danger to anyone else, but Tyler getting mad? Not a good sign. He didn't know how much of Tyler's mind was sound and intact, and it wasn't impossible that Tyler could have a lapse in judgement and end up strangling Josh to death in blind rage. He seemed like the type to do something like that, at least.  
  
Tyler shifted, and Josh tensed, but all he did was straighten himself and bend down to reach for the head.  
  
"Alright then," Tyler said, collecting the severed head from the floor. "We're done here, if you want to be done."  
  
He tucked the head under his arm like a basketball, ignoring the curdled blood that was definitely soaking into his hoodie. He turned to leave, heading for the window, and Josh felt something in his chest tug as if his body were bound to Tyler's.    
  
"Hey, wait," Josh said, reaching out.  
  
Tyler paused, and Josh swallowed. He didn't know why he was doing this-- pity, perhaps?  
  
"I..." he began. "We don't have to be done. It's not all black and white, you know. We can keep hanging out if you promise not to kill me. Just-- keep me out of it, alright? Do whatever you want to them for therapeutic reasons or whatever, but I don't want to know. Knowing they're dead is good enough for me. I could just... keep you informed."  
  
Tyler turned around, and Josh could see a grin growing on his face. Josh felt his stomach flip when the rest of his words came tumbling out.  
  
"There's a lady," he said, "a mom, I saw her hit her kid when he lost his shoe at the park, so hard he knocked his head on the ground. He was barely four, sandy hair. They have a red sedan, from the mid 2000s or so. It's not a lot of info, I know, but maybe you can-- maybe you can do something about it."  
  
"Thanks, Josh," he said, his grin widening into a beam, and there was nothing crazed about it; he seemed genuinely happy to hear it. "I'll see what I can do."  
  
"Anytime," Josh said. "And, hey, can I, like, get your phone number or something? I have an easier time being friends with people who don't break into my house on a regular basis. Unless that, like, compromises your cover or--"  
  
"No, no, it's fine," Tyler said. "The cops here are so negligent, I don't think they even know that there's a serial killer in their midst."  
  
He laughed and looked down at the severed head.  
  
"So you don't want to keep the head?" Tyler asked, gesturing at it.  
  
"Definitely not," Josh said, raising his hands. "Just to make it clear, I don't want anything that was once attached to a human body, okay? Chocolate is fine."  
  
"Got it. Nothing that was on or a part of a person. So no fine jewelry? No diamonds for your ears? Not even a pearl necklace--"  
  
Josh found himself laughing.

"Tempting, but no. How am I gonna explain it to my family?"  
  
Tyler shrugged.  
  
"Your basement's huge, dude, there's plenty of places to hide little things."  
  
"This is huge?"  
  
It suddenly occurred to Josh that Tyler might not have a life as comfortable as his own.  
  
"Yeah," Tyler said. "I mean, compared to my place. I don't care, though, all I do there is sleep."  
  
"Still, that's... pretty small," Josh said, evaluating the size of his bedroom and imagining how much smaller Tyler's entire living space must be. It wasn't much, only about the size of the smaller bedrooms upstairs, and there was the furnace and the boiler taking up about a quarter of the space.  
  
"It's better than having a roommate. It's just safer like this," Tyler said. "Seriously, I'm glad you're warming up to me a lot faster than I expected after I tried to kill you, but don't get all mushy on me. You have concerning amounts of empathy."  
  
"Thanks. Wait, was that supposed to be a compliment?"  
  
Tyler shrugged.  
  
"Eh, it goes both ways," he said. "Your greatest strength is your greatest weakness, after all. Anyways, I gotta go now. It's gonna be awkward if your parents come down and see me in your room. It'll be like high school all over again. Not that I was cool enough to do stuff like that in high school."  
  
Josh snorted. Tyler was surprisingly likeable when he was neither murderous or painfully reserved.  
  
"Alright, I guess I'll... see you?"  
  
"I guess?"  
  
Tyler slid the bag containing the severed head onto his forearm like a grisly purse and started for the window through which he came, and he was dangling from the lower sill when he cursed.  
  
"I forgot to give you my number," he said, starting to laugh. "Let me just get out and I'll tell you."  
  
Josh scrambled for his phone as Tyler wiggled his way up, the plastic bag rustling the whole time. He opened up his contacts just as Tyler successfully climbed out and turned around, laying on his stomach and poking his head back inside.  
  
"It's 614-292-9043," he said.  
  
"Got it," Josh said, sending him a smiley face.  
  
"Feel free to blow up my phone," Tyler said. "I don't talk to many people."  
  
"I don't, either."  
  
Tyler's head disappeared from his window, which clacked shut a moment later. Josh could hear Tyler's footsteps fading.  
  
Josh walked over and locked the window. He was left feeling surprisingly good about the encounter. He wondered how long it would last.

* * *

  
Tyler drives back to the butcher's. The back door was left unlocked, and he slips in to see Jenna letting Gardner's corpse down from one of the hooks in the corner next to the pigs. It's been about an hour since he dropped the body off, and she'd already finished bleeding it dry.  
  
"Jenna," he says.  
  
Jenna shrieks and jumps, and the body crashes gracelessly to the ground with a loud _splat!_  
  
"Tyler," she says, clutching her forehead and smearing blood on her hairnet. "You scared me."  
  
"Sorry. Want me to help you with that?"

"Yes. Please."  
  
Tyler helps hoist Gardner's heavy body off the floor and dump him on the work bench. He's gotten a little stiff since Tyler killed him, but that doesn't matter-- he's going into the meat grinder.  
  
"Jenna, I'm your friend, right?" Tyler asks once the body is secured.  
  
Jenna gives him a funny look.  
  
"Yes?" she says. "I thought that was pretty obvious."  
  
"I'm not asking if you like me," Tyler says, "I'm asking in what way. _How_ you feel about me."  
  
"Oh, this again."  
  
This isn't the first time they've had this conversation.  
  
"You know how it is for us," Jenna says, grabbing the hose. "I don't think there's a difference between love and friends for us, if we feel either. Stand back."  
  
Tyler nods, twisting his fingers together as he backs away from the table until his back is against the wall. Jenna turns on the hose and starts spraying down the body, clearing out the blood and the little flecks of gore, and he watches as it all swirls down the drain in the floor. The air smells like blood and tap water.  
  
"So, you wouldn't feel mad if I were to start talking to someone else, right?" Tyler asks as Jenna starts rifling through Gardner's organs, ripping out kidneys, livers, and lungs, tossing them all into a plastic bin.  
  
"No," Jenna says, grimacing at the sight of the corpse's ruined intestines. "So long as you still hang out with me once in a while. And you're doing that right now, so I'm not bothered. I'm glad you asked, though."  
  
She looks over the intestines and decides they're too far gone to be salvaged. She throws them into the waste bin and gets out the electric saw.  
  
"So who is it?" she asks as she readjusts her goggles and switches on the saw.  
  
"Uh, an ice cream truck driver."  
  
She stops and looks up at him.  
  
"Really?" she asks.  
  
"Yeah," Tyler says as she resumes her original task. "His name's Josh. I actually tried to kill him, before. I thought he was hurting kids, but he seems like a pretty cool guy. I got his number."  
  
He can see her eyebrows go up through her hairnet. The saw shrieks as it meets the bone in Gardner's left wrist, and Tyler flinches as tissue splatters out. He's far away enough to be safe from the spray, but it's still close enough that some of the gore spatters at his feet.  
  
"He still gave you his number after all that?" she says, speaking louder to be heard over the noisy saw.  
  
"That, and I tried to give him this guy's head. He didn't like it."  
  
Jenna laughs as she takes Gardner's hand and tosses it in the waste bin, then walks around to get the other.  
  
"Is that why you asked me to wrap it?"  
  
Tyler nods.  
  
"And he didn't call the cops on you?"  
  
"No, he says he's thought about doing the same thing as me, actually. I think I've maybe found someone to, you know, work with me. Even if he doesn't like the heads."  
  
"Wow. Does he know about me? Or the sausage?"  
  
"No, I don't think so. He never asked about what I do with the bodies, either. But you should meet him sometime, he's-- he seems pretty nice. I wanna get to know him more."  
  
"I do, too. What's he look like?"  
  
"Uh, about my height, a little buffer. He has curly black hair and his eyes are this funny shape-- I can't describe them, you have to see them for yourself. But looking at him makes me feel the way I feel when I look at you."  
  
"Even in my hairnet?" Jenna deflected.  
  
Tyler nodded.  
  
"Even in the hairnet."  
  
Eventually, Gardner's extremities are all severed, and now Jenna begins to skin him. He watches as she peels the pale, hairy skin away, leaving a sleek, red form that glistens under the fluorescent lights.  
  
"Do you wanna help me get the meat off?" she asks.  
  
"Sure."  
  
Tyler grabs an apron off the hook near the door and dons a pair of gloves and a hairnet. Jenna hands him a knife, and they start on opposite sides of the body, starting from the arms and working their way down, scraping off the muscle and dumping it into the large bin on the floor. Red muscle gives way to white bones, and the sight comforts Tyler. This isn't Warren anymore-- this is just meat. Meat that feeds a town. Meat that nourishes bodies. Meat that helps other people. It's clean now.  
  
They finish up the job, break up the skeleton, and move on to cutting the meat into finer chunks. Jenna slices it into thin strips while Tyler cuts it horizontally into cubes and dumps it into the next bin. Tyler feels the blade slice through the sinuous tissue of Gardner's muscle as he cuts the pieces. The feeling of Jenna's warm hands brushing against his through two layers of gloves as they pass his flesh between them is comforting and familiar. It's enough for Tyler to feel safe and not overwhelmed the way skin-to-skin contact tends to make him feel.  
  
Once all sixty pounds of usable meat is chopped (which is never as much as it sounds), Jenna sends Tyler to find the spice mix while she gets out the cold cubed pork fat and the cream. They pour all of it into the bin containing the flesh and together, they blend the ingredients together, giggling like little children at the horrible squelching sounds.  
  
Jenna puts the mixture away in the fridge, and they both wash up. It'll be another half hour until the meat is cold enough to be ground and put into the pork casing, but Tyler knows she usually waits overnight to do it, because unlike Tyler, she's not nocturnal and needs her sleep. She grabs another folding chair and sets it up next to Tyler's, and together they stare at the empty, bloodied table.  
  
"How have you been feeling?" Tyler asks. "Like, about Pastor Davis. Our, uh, anniversary with him coming up."  
  
Jenna pulls her legs up onto the seat.  
  
"Not that great, actually," she says, resting her arms on top of her knees. "Every time I get comfortable, it just pops right back into my head. But this helped. Especially since I got to do it with you."  
  
Tyler hadn't been the only one hurt by the ministry's youth pastor. He always had a sinking suspicion that there were others that never told him, but selfishly, he's glad that it's just them. It's been that way for the last decade.     
  
"You want me to bring you some more people?" Tyler asks.  
  
Tyler is supposed to be looking for Cherry Foster, an elementary schoolteacher who got off with only six months in prison and a year's probation for violating her students, but he has an ice cream truck driver to impress. He'll get the woman with the red car first, and then he'll resume his hunt for Foster.  
   
"Sure," Jenna says. "Fall's coming up-- more people start asking for them during the holidays. We could use the extra money. Oh, and speaking of money, I'll pay you once the sausages sell. You helped me a lot."  
  
"You don't have to do that," Tyler says, even though he does desperately need it. "We're friends, this isn't a money thing."  
  
"You're helping the family business, so you do deserve some of it."  
  
"No, I don't."  
  
"Yes, you do."  
  
They bicker back and forth until Jenna yawns.  
  
"You need to go to bed," Tyler says. "I've kept you up too long."  
  
"It's fine," Jenna says, rubbing her eyes. "It was worth talking to you again. You never come in when the shop is open."  
  
"That's because I'm asleep. You ever thought about becoming a twenty-four hour butchery?"  
  
"That's not a thing, Tyler, who buys meat at three in the morning?"  
  
"People like me. And it can be a thing if you make it. You'll be the first."  
  
"No thanks, Tyler."  
  
They say their goodbyes, and Jenna closes up shop to go upstairs to her family's apartment. Tyler heads for his car, parked in the alley.  
  
Tyler sits inside, the dust from the seats tickling his nose. He watches the light in Jenna's apartment go out before he starts the car and drives away.  
  
The streets are empty at this time of night. It's peaceful. The traffic lights flicker and change with no cars to obey them. He's free to turn his stereo on as loud as it can go.

 

_For one moment,_  
_I wish you'd hold your stage,_  
_With no feelings at all_.  
_Open-minded,_ _I'm sure I used to be so free_

_Wash me away,_  
_Clean your body of me._  
_Erase all the memories_ ,  
_They will only bring us pain._  
_And I've seen, all I'll ever need._

He glances down at the passenger's seat when he comes to a stop at a light. Gardner's head is buckled in, still wrapped. His... _juices_ were starting to soak through the paper. Ew.  
  
He takes it upstairs with him when he gets home, and unwraps it on his small dining table. He gets out his knife-- his maiming knife, not his regular kitchen knife, mind you-- and idly starts carving away at his nose and ears. He doesn't take, like, sadistic pleasure in doing so (only a little), he does it to encourage rot and make the head a little harder to identify if it ever gets found. Which it won't, because it's going into a landfill.  
  
Tyler stabs the other eye a few times, and starts wondering if he can get at his brains through his nose like the ancient Egyptians. He sticks the point of the knife into one nostril, pushing harder when he met resistance. Still nothing. He pushes a little harder, and a little harder, and _aw fuck I dropped it._  
  
Tyler makes a small squeak of dismay as the head bounces off the table and rolls onto the floor, blood and fluid splattering everywhere. He glares at the head. It stares back at him, mocking him.  
  
He wants to punt it, but that would just make a bigger mess.  
  
Tyler cleans up the head, wraps it, and tosses it in the garbage disposal chute. He's done with Gardner and he wants to forget about him now. He strips and heads for the shower, dumping the clothes into the hamper and turning on the water.  
  
He steps inside as soon as the water turns on, shivering at the cold water. The building technically has hot water, but it takes ten minutes for the water to get what might be called lukewarm, and it doesn't ever actually become hot. Tyler doesn't have the money to let the water run for just a few more degrees, so he's gotten used to cold showers. Even in the winter. It keeps his body from getting too comfortable, too, which is good given his history with sex and Pastor Davis. The less he felt, the better.  
  
But his thoughts wander to Josh. Does he want to touch him? Is that what the warm feeling in his chest is about?  
  
He scoffs to himself. He doesn't even know whether he wants to _kiss_ Josh or not, let alone have sex with him. He's had this trouble before-- still has it, technically, with Jenna, and although they've settled, neither of them feel comfortable where they are. Like they should both be doing more and less.  
  
That's how he feels about Josh. Too much and not enough. He leans his head against the tile and sighs.  
  
Eventually he gets too cold to linger under the spray any longer. He towels off and pulls on his old gym shorts and a t-shirt to sleep in. Air conditioning isn't a requirement in Columbus, but good God, Tyler wishes it was. He turns on his rickety fan next to the bed and turns off the one lamp he has room for in his studio.  
  
It's only two in the morning, but he's ready to go to sleep. Losing his job, killing Gardner, lugging the body around, wooing Josh, helping Jenna-- all of it's wore him out, especially since he hasn't eaten all night. He would if he could, but there's nothing in his mini-fridge and he doesn't want to find himself coming up short when trying to pay for the bills after rent. That would require making phone calls and talking to people about boring, adult things, which he found even more terrifying than getting caught and going to jail.  
  
He heaves a sigh and closes his eyes. He'll worry about all of this tomorrow.

* * *

  
A text message wakes Tyler up early in September.

 

_Are you busy?_

Sent by Josh at 9:34 AM

 

Tyler stares at the message on his phone. It's been a few days since he gave Josh his number, and a part of him had assumed that Josh would just forget about him. But he didn't.  
  
He's pleasantly surprised.

 

_It's raining today, so I have the day off. I know you're mostly awake at night, but do you wanna hang out? We could have a late dinner._

_Or early breakfast, in your case._

Sent by Josh at 9:37 AM

 

Tyler looks outside the window. It _is_ raining.  
   
And he left the window open.  
  
Cursing, Tyler bolts up from his bed and shuts the window. Water has gotten all over the sill and sprayed onto the floor, and soaked the bottom half of his mattress. How did he not notice it? He looks at it all and decides it's not worth cleaning up. He's so tired.  
  
He sits back down on his bed and replies to Josh.

  
_Sure, anywhere is fine._

_Nothing too fancy though. I don't have a suit._

Sent by Tyler at 9:39 AM

  
  
_You definitely don't need a suit to go to Taco Bell._

_I am not a fancy person by any means  
_

_So we can go to the one near the library? What time is good for you?_

Sent by Josh at 9:41 AM

  
Tyler isn't working, so technically any time would be good for him. It would be the most polite to schedule it for Josh's convenience.

 

_How about eight?_

Sent by Tyler at 9:45 AM

 

_Great! Do you want me to pick you up?_

Sent by Josh at 9:46 AM

 

_Anything to save on gas, lol_

Sent by Tyler at 9:46 AM

 

Despite the late (early?) hour, he doesn't feel completely dead inside. His body is still dead, though, and he falls back asleep in a matter of minutes.  
  
A phone call from Josh wakes him up later at eight. Tyler peels his face off the mattress and answers the phone.  
  
"Hello?" he murmurs.  
  
"Hey, Tyler," Josh says. "I'm downstairs. You should dress warm, by the way. It rained all day."  
  
"Oh God, give me a second, okay."  
  
Tyler hangs up and makes a wheezing sound. He's not ready.  
  
He practically tears off his pajamas and darts to his tiny closet. He's not going to wear his usual black, well, _everything_ , because being a serial killer isn't a full-time job. (Actually, that's not true, he doesn't have a life, but Josh doesn't need to know that.)  
  
He has a white button-up, a pair of cargos, and a blue athletic jacket. It'll have to do.  
  
He stuffs his pants legs into the cuffs of his boots and ties his laces in a sloppy knot before racing out the door. He forgets his keys inside and his door is unlocked, but anyone who knows this area knows that there's nothing worth stealing in this part of town.  
  
Tyler races down the stairs (the elevator is broken) and makes it outside the building. Everything is shiny and blissfully cool from the rain earlier that day, and he almost doesn't spot Josh.  
  
Now, Tyler had been expecting Josh to show up in a reasonable, economic sedan, maybe a Prius, clean and smelling faintly of car freshener, maybe a bumper sticker or two. He hadn't been expecting him to come here on a _motorcycle_.  
  
At least the piercings and the mohawk make sense now.  
  
"You look surprised!" Josh says, grinning.  
  
The engine is idling, Josh leaning on one leg, helmet tucked under his arm as he waits on the road. Tyler steps forward slowly, as if the whole thing is a mirage that would dissolve as soon as he touches it. But no, the whole thing is real. Josh Dun, who drives an ice cream truck and cries when he gets scared, owns a black and silver bike with a _very_ aggressive lean.  
  
"You just-- you didn't seem like the type," Tyler admits as he steps off the curb.  
  
Josh shrugs, and now Tyler notices his jacket, pure black and made from some slinky, synthetic material with a slight shine. This is equal parts great and terrifying.  
  
Josh looks him up and down.  
  
"You dressed well, but you're gonna need a helmet," Josh says. "The boots were a good call."  
  
Josh hands Tyler the helmet. Tyler turns it over in his hands a few times, seeing his reflection in the clear visor, and pulls it over his head.  
  
"You ready?" Josh asks, his voice muffled.  
  
"Yeah," Tyler says, suddenly feeling very nervous. He barely passed his driving test without succumbing to a panic attack-- how was he going to do this?  
  
Josh mounts the bike and pats the spot behind him. There's about a foot's worth of seat left for a passenger.  
  
"Come on," he says.  
  
Oh God. He has to touch Josh, too.  
  
The fact that there are several layers of thick clothing between them makes it easier, but Tyler can feel Josh's body move and shift as he wraps his arms around his torso, linking them together like a nervous seatbelt. The material of the jacket is as smooth as it looks, and his sweaty palms slip more than once.  
  
"Alright, let's go," Josh says, and Tyler can feel the engine vibrate beneath him as they speed off.  
  
Tyler's back feels very, very exposed. His chest is pressed flush to Josh's back and clenching onto the sides of the bike with his legs, but it's nothing like riding in a car. Tyler tucks his face right into the crook of Josh's shoulder, trying not to hyperventilate between the terror of the motorbike and the excitement of hugging Josh.  
  
His stomach swoops when they turn a corner, and again when Josh stops at a red light and leans his foot against the ground to prop the bike up.  
  
"Are you okay?" Josh asks.  
  
Tyler nods.  
  
"I'm still alive," he says.  
  
Josh's hair is mussed from the wind, and his eyes are shiny and his cheeks are pink from the cold air. Tyler's disappointed when he turns away to face forward again as the light turns green, and he leaves his stomach somewhere two blocks behind them.  
  
It feels like forever, but they do make it to the Taco Bell, which feels almost anticlimactic after the excitement from the motorcycle ride. But it's a familiar presence, and the mindless purple and beige of the restaurant grounds him.  
  
"How was it?" Josh asks after he parks the bike, grinning.  
  
"Uh, really-- really exciting," Tyler says, and he isn't lying-- it was pretty fun.  
  
Josh helps Tyler take off the helmet, and he takes it with him inside the restaurant. They collapse into the nearest empty booth as soon as the order (Josh absolutely insisting that he pay, even though Tyler just got his money from Jenna), and Tyler rests his head on the filthy table. His heart is still racing a bit, and his hands are cold from the air.  
  
"I didn't know you had a motorcycle," Tyler says, and it's a horrible conversation starter, but he really has no other words.  
  
Josh grins.  
  
"I learned a few years ago. I figured I wasn't gonna leave Columbus, not for a while at least, so it was cheaper than getting a car."  
  
Josh's skin looks perfect and milky smooth even in the greasy yellow light. There's a little bit of stubble on his face-- he probably didn't shave this morning because he had the day off, and there's a smile in his eyes. Tyler lets himself grin.  
  
"I could totally take you riding again," Josh says. "Or I could even teach you, if you wanted."  
  
"Could you?" Tyler asks.  
  
He's still terrified of simply being on the motorcycle, much less being in control over it, but if it gives him an opportunity to hang out with Josh? He'll do it. His spine is still tingling from feeling Josh's warmth.  
  
Josh, probably feeling warm, unzips the jacket, revealing a t-shirt for some punk-looking band. He doesn't look like an ice cream man at all, and Tyler... Tyler likes this, too. He's just full of surprises.  
  
(What would this Josh look like soaked in the blood of monsters? Was this Josh more conducive to violence, to recklessness? Would Tyler be less afraid to touch him, if that was what he wanted to do? Did Josh want to be with him? Was this what this was about?)  
  
Tyler doesn't realize that Josh has gotten their food and returned until he hears the crinkling of wax paper.  
  
"You were spacing out, dude," Josh says as he unwraps a taco. "You okay?"  
  
"Yeah," Tyler says, grabbing a burrito. "Just thinking."

Josh takes a bite of his food.

"About?" he asks.

Tyler can't take a bite.

"Uh, you."

Josh raises an eyebrow. Did that come off as flirting? _Is_ Tyler flirting?

"You want to know about me?" Josh asks, and now Tyler is pretty sure they're firmly in flirting territory.

What is this? Why is Josh not scared of him after the head incident? Why does he seem so much more confident? And why does Tyler feel so nervous?

"S-- sure," Tyler says. "How come you drive an ice cream truck?"

He takes a bite of his bean and cheese burrito to avoid having to say anything else.

"It was my dad's thing," Josh says, "and before that, it was my grandpa's thing. That's why the truck looks so old-- it's not like that to be hispter-y. I think it was from about 1951 or something. My dad refitted it when he inherited it in the 80s, so the stuff inside is new, and about five years ago he retired and gave it to me."

"Are you gonna do it for another thirty years?"

Josh shrugs.

"Maybe," he says. "I mean, I like it. It makes kids happy. And I'm not-- I'm not really a genius or anything, so I'd have a hard time finding a job if I decided I didn't want to do this."

"You seem just fine to me. You can read and count money."

Josh laughs, and Tyler wonders what he was like when he was in high school.

"Nope," Josh says. "I flunked out of high school, actually. I mean, I got my GED, but I still flunked."

"Oh, I'm sorry."

"It's fine. I can always go to community college. What about you?"

"I dropped out of college during my sophomore year," Tyler says. "I had a scholarship, for basketball."

"You don't seem like the athletic type."

"I know, that's why i dropped. I thought I wanted to go pro, I'd practiced since I was in middle school, but I realized I wouldn't be able to handle it, being the way I am."

"Oh. You said that, uh, that something happened to you when you were younger, did you drop because of that?"

Tyler shakes his head.

"It wasn't anything related to school, and that was before college. It was the pastor of my youth ministry, actually. Green Hill Presbyterian."

"Never heard of it."

"Yeah, it closed down in 2009. The pastor got murdered, and then the crash finished it off."

Josh furrows his eyebrows as he sips his coke.

"Did you--"

"Yeah, it was me. Working with a friend."

Josh's eyes go wide and make perfect semicircles. Tyler thinks they look like little orange wedges.

"How old _were_ you?" Josh asks.

"We were, uh..." 

Tyler pauses to chew his burrito. His memory of that time is already getting fuzzy.

"We were about sixteen, seventeen. Yeah. We were both seventeen," he finally says.

"Where is he now?"

Tyler stops chewing. "Who?"

"Your friend."

"Oh," Tyler says, swallowing. "No. It's a she, actually. We still talk. She gets rid of the, uh, the leftovers. She doesn't like getting involved with the other stuff. I'll take you to see her sometime, if you want."

"Sorry for assuming," Josh says, looking sheepish. "And sure, if you think we'd get along. Were you guys, like, ever together?"

Tyler squeezes his hot sauce packet a little too hard. Is Josh asking if Tyler is single?

"Not really," Tyler says. "We weren't like Bonnie and Clyde, if that's what you're asking. That's more us."

It was Josh's turn to pause, spilling some lettuce from his taco, and Tyler realizes too late how that sounded.

"You're bi?" Josh asks, and oh boy, this conversation is heading into even more dangerous and confusing territory.

"I-- I guess I am," Tyler says, eating the dry stub of the end of his burrito. "And you?"

Why can't he stop talking? _Why did he say that?_

Josh nods and unwraps the next taco. 

"I've never seriously dated anyone so not a lot of people know, but yeah, I am."

Tyler is getting really, really sweaty.

"Cool," he says, and misses the straw when he tries to take a sip and jabs himself in the cheek.

* * *

Josh barely survived that outing (was it an outing, or did it qualify as a date?). Not because he had a bad time--he was freaking out because he had a _great_ time. He started this evening with no idea what hanging out with a serial killer would be like, but the whole thing was... surprisingly normal. Not that he expected Tyler to, like, massacre everyone inside, but this was the first time they'd ever talked without Tyler trying to recruit him into his one-man murder club.

The cold air was refreshing and brought him back to his senses as he took Tyler back home. The helmet was currently on Tyler, who was holding onto him like an extremely nervous koala. He was squeezing him a little too hard, actually, but it was nice to be aware of Tyler's presence.

Josh didn't have many friends-- technically, he didn't have any. He left everyone in high school behind when he flunked out, and they all graduated and went on to college without him. Driving an ice cream truck was not an incredibly social profession, either, because it was just him and the gallons and gallons of rocky road and rainbow sherbet in there. He worked there all year, too-- he sold coffee and hot chocolate during the colder months.

Maybe he latched onto Tyler because he was craving meaningful conversation with someone he wasn't related to. Maybe that was why it took him about ten minutes before he outed himself. Maybe he didn't really think Tyler's eyes were like polished walnut wood, or that his voice was soothing, or that he wanted to cup his soft jawline. Maybe this whole thing was going to come back and bite him in the ass later, when Tyler got caught. Was not turning in a criminal to the police a crime?

Tyler tapped his shoulder when they came to a stop in a residential zone.

"Josh? Josh--"

"Yeah?" Josh asked. "Sorry, I couldn't hear you."

"You're going the wrong way."

Josh looked around him and realized that they were just about a block away from his own house. He was supposed to drop Tyler off, not take him home. That was third-date material, at the very least, and Josh wasn't even sure if this counted as one.

"Oh, crap, I'm sorry," Josh said. "I must have been on autopilot. I'll turn around now."

Tyler's house was a little bit east, and Josh figured he could make it there without turning around and going back onto one of the main streets. He revved the engine and turned right. His bike sounded much louder in the quiet neighborhood, resonating on the empty streets. Trees and street lights passed overhead as Josh tried his best not to get turned around again.

Tyler shook his shoulder, hard. Frightened, Josh stopped the bike.

"What is it?" he asked, craning his head back as far as he could. "Are you okay?"

"Is that the car?" Tyler asked, pointing at a red sedan parked in the driveway of a nondescript house.

"Wait, what?" Josh asked before suddenly remembering. "Oh, right, that."

He squinted at the car. It was a Honda, mid 2000s, with a dent in the back bumper, just like Josh remembered.

"I think it is," Josh said. "Is anyone home?"

Tyler leaned forward.  

"Yeah. Let's get out of here."

Josh sped away into the night. _Soon,_ he thought. _Soon, no one's gonna hurt that kid anymore._

The thought both frightened and excited him. With Tyler on his side, he could maybe, just maybe, make the kids in this city a little safer.

They made it back to Tyler's apartment, and it somehow looked even worse after seeing it the first time. Absolutely nothing about it looked up to code, and Josh almost wanted to invite Tyler to live with him in his basement like E.T.

Tyler wobbled off his motorcycle, pulling off his helmet to reveal a small grin.

"Thanks, Josh," he said. "This is the most fun I've had in a-- in a while. Really."

Tyler really needed to go out more. Josh could do that.

"No problem," Josh said, suddenly feeling very mushy. "You know, uh, if you ever need anything, I'll try to help."

Tyler ran a hand over his buzzed hair. "You'll do that?"

"Sure."

Tyler's grin became a full-blown smile, and yeah, Josh could look at that for a while.

"Have a good night, Josh," Tyler said. "Get home safe."

"Of course. Bye, Tyler."

Tyler waved and went up the concrete staircase to the front entrance of his building. Josh lingered as Tyler punched in the entrance code, waiting until he disappeared behind the steel door before putting on his helmet and driving away.

* * *

Tyler collapses onto his dining table. That was probably the first full meal he's eaten in a while, and his stomach is comfortably tight and his body doesn't feel cold and slow. He tears a sheet of paper off his ratty notepad and grabs a stray, capless pen off the floor, writing down the address of the house and the car's plate number before he could forget it. He has a few job interviews to attend over the next few days and he needs a week or so for observation, so he can't get to it right away.

He tapes the address to his bathroom door. With all that taken into account, Tyler could probably pay them a visit sometime on the ninth, give or take a few days.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> josh: *genuinely cares about kids*  
> josh: *rides a motorcycle on his days off*  
> josh: *wants to murder things*  
> tyler, vibrating at a rate high enough to liquefy steel: i like you a normal amount
> 
> this chapter was slightly less fueled by violence than the first one, mostly filler/character development, but i promise you that it will be back in spades by the next one!


	3. Live by the Sword, Die by the Sword

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter three, now with 50% more violence, vitamin c, and iron than other competing brands! non-GMO, organic, wheat-free, dairy-free, soy-free, nut-free, and gluten free. not vegan, kosher, or slaughterhouse-free, unfortunately.

"Ugh."

Tyler likes climbing, and he's good at it, but scaling a two-story building on the branches of a flimsy tree isn't exactly his idea of fun. He would have gone in through one of the doors on the ground level, but the front door is extremely squeaky and the back door has a motion detector. There also aren't any basement windows for him to squeeze into, so he has to resort to climbing through the second floor window.

He tumbles in with a little less grace than he's willing to admit. A stale scent hits his nose, and he scowls at the neglected state of the room.

Something creaks.

Tyler whips his head around and spots a lump on the bed wrapped in blankets. _Right_ , he thinks, _this is the kid Josh was talking about._

"Hey there," he says, stepping closer. "What's your name?"

The kid doesn't say anything, just trembles and tries not to breathe. He's not offended-- he tends to have that effect on dogs and small children. 

"How's your family life?" he asks. "Your parents treat you well?" 

The kid still doesn't respond.

"Well, you're not gonna have to worry about them ever again. I'll get rid of them for you. Just stay in here."

Tyler leaves the room, dragging a wooden chair he found inside and shutting the door. He leans the chair up against the door so that the back blocks the knob from turning all the way, effectively locking the child inside. He'll remove the chair once he's cleaned everything up so he could wander out on his own.

Tyler doesn't trust the system to do its best for this kid, but foster care will most certainly be better for him. He'd spotted some large, painful-looking bruises on his face in the low light, and the sight of it had turned his stomach. 

His parents never beat him, but they ignored him, and that was just as bad. He'd spelled out what had happened to him, what Pastor Davis was doing to him, and yet it somehow didn't matter because _Pastor David is such a nice man, and you're a boy, that's just not possible._

Tyler snorts to himself. _Nice, my ass_ , he thinks. 

He produces a sledgehammer from his new duffel bag. It's got a five-pound head, hefty in his arms, and Tyler swings it back and forth in his hands as he leans against the wall in the hallway, taking his slow, sweet time. He wants to see if he can paralyze her with the hammer-- he'd have to hit her spine, so she'd have to be on her back for it to really work. 

He also takes his knife, the same one he used to try and stab Josh. He's pretty sure that the father is also asleep in the same bed, and Tyler wants to get rid of him first. He'd been involved in the abuse, too, from what he found, but the main perpetrator is the mother. Ergo, he deserves a slightly quicker death. 

Jenna is going to love that he brought two bodies this time. And Josh is going to be so happy when he hears they're gone. Tyler lives to please.

Tyler's latex gloves don't make a sound when they wrap around the knob to the master bedroom, and the door only creaks slightly as he pushes it open. 

The thick curtains are drawn and it's almost completely dark inside. No matter; Tyler's eyes are acclimated to the dark. He steps closer to the bed, looking for the twin lumps of the couple under the covers, pausing when he only heard one set of snores.

Where's the father? 

Tyler stops and listens, and he can hear the TV on downstairs. _God dammit,_ he thinks. He'll have to kill her quickly and quietly because he doesn't know if he's still awake or not, and going downstairs to check is too big a gamble.

He sets the sledgehammer down on the carpet and creeps closer to the bed, holding the knife. Quickly, he swoops down and claps a hand over her mouth and presses the edge of the knife against her throat.

"Be quiet," he hisses. "Be quiet, or I'll kill you right here."

She nods as well as she can with the knife pressing into her neck.

"Get on your stomach," he says.

She nods again, and Tyler lifts the blade from her neck and his hand from her face. As soon as he does, however, she leaps up and tries to wrestle away.

"Help!" she shouts as Tyler tries to force her back down. "Jerry!"

She kicks and catches Tyler in the stomach and he drops his knife onto the bed, winded. Attacking again, she manages to completely break free and clocks him in the face, sending him sprawling to the ground. 

He can hear footsteps coming up the stairs as he grabs the hammer and stands back up. The woman's taken his knife, gripping it in both hands as she points it at him.

"Stay back!" she shouts, jabbing at him. 

 _That's my favorite knife,_  he thinks. _And she's touching it with her filthy paws._

This, on top of every other offense she's committed, sends fury coursing through his veins, so hard and fast his vision whites out.

He swings the hammer like a bat and catches her in the shoulder. He can feel her bones crunch, and the force of the blow was strong enough to send her slamming into the wall, making a dent in the plaster. 

"Fuck you!" he screams. "You've fucking ruined everything!" 

He's about to bring the hammer down again when the light flicks on. Someone grabs the handle and tears it out of his hands. Jerry.

Blinded by the sudden burst of light, Tyler tries to dart out of the way when a pair of hands wrap around his throat and start wrestling him towards the wall. He tries to shout, but only a strangled animal sound comes out as his back slams against the drywall. Tyler tries to pull Jerry's hands off of his neck, but he's larger, heavier, and much, much stronger. Stars dance in his vision, but he still has the sense to bring his knee up, catching Jerry in the crotch and forcing him to let go. 

Tyler darts out of the narrow space between Jerry and the wall and picks up the hammer, kicking Jerry in the ass and knocking him down again before he can fully recovers. Hebswings and hits him on the right side of his torso, sending him sprawling next to his wife, who's still clutching her shoulder and Tyler's knife. 

Tyler steps around Jerry and nimbly dodges his grab for Tyler's ankles. He forgets the wife, who stabs him in the leg. A bolt of lightning goes up Tyler's right leg and he goes down, smacking his head on the foot of the bedframe. He collapses between the couple, back bent at an uncomfortable angle as he lay limp against the bed, breathing hard through the throbbing pain all over his body.

Jerry, having recovered from the hammer blow, stands up and kicks Tyler in the stomach, knocking him onto his back and on top of the wife's legs. She kicks him away, trying to stand up and hissing as she held her crushed shoulder. Jerry pins him him down again as the woman hands the knife to her husband, and she edges away to grab the hammer.

Tyler struggles futilely against Jerry's weight, thrashing like a landed fish when he sees the glint of the knife over him. 

"Who the fuck do you think you are, huh?!" he shouts at Tyler, getting a grip on the knife on the knife while also holding him down. "Lydia, get out of here, I'm killing this fucking faggot." 

So that's her name. Lydia starts dragging herself away as Jerry presses the knife to his neck, and Tyler can't help but laugh at the irony. 

"You think this is funny? Huh?"

Jerry slams Tyler's head against the floor and makes his vision blur. 

"You break into my fucking house, you try to rape my fucking wife, give me one-- _one!_  good reason not to cut your throat."

 _Rape._ The word echoes in his head, and his last bit of restraint evaporates as he truly, deeply snaps.

"You _dense_ motherfucker," Tyler spits, grabbing Jerry's wrist and wrenching it away with a strength he didn't know he had. "Do you really think I'd go through all this fucking trouble to fuck someone? That insinuation is _offensive,_ to me _and_ your son. Has it never occurred to you that the both of you have done something to deserve this?"

"Is this about the kid?" Jerry asks, and Tyler elbows him in the face.

"No, it's about the expired milk in the fridge. Of _course_ it's about your kid! I saw you strangle him when he dropped a plate. What the fuck is your guys' problem?!"

Jerry drops the knife to clutch at his face. Bad move. Tyler snatches the knife and stabs him in the crook of his shoulder, twisting the knife until he feels tendons rip and Tyler is sprayed with blood. Jerry screams and collapses to the floor. Tyler tosses the bloodied knife into the bed and picks up the hammer again.

Lydia hasn't made much progress getting out of the room, and he clubs her in the back of the head with the hammer. She collapses to the ground, lying prone, and now Tyler takes the opportunity to do what he'd been _trying_ to do before everything went to hell.

_Crack!_

Lydia's legs no longer obey her. She howls, and Tyler laughs, dark and full of schadenfreude. He kicks her aside and leaves her to bleed as he turns his attention to Jerry, who is covered in a sheen of pained sweat.

"Your son is four," Tyler says, circling around Jerry and disguising his pained hobble as a confident swagger. "How could he possibly understand why you're hitting him?"

"It doesn't matter if he understands it or not," Jerry says, trying to get up and wincing. "That's how you raise kids. Lemme guess, you're one of those bleeding-heart yuppies who cry when they see people eating meat or littering."

Tyler pretends to consider it. He mostly just considers the burning pain in his leg and the warm blood seeping into his pants.

"Hmm," he says. "What do you think, Lydia?"

"Go to hell," she rasps.

Tyler shrugs.

"The lady of the house has spoken," he says. 

He raises the hammer to hit Jerry on the head, but Jerry lunges for him and knocks him over yet again, and he cries out when he lands on his shoulder the wrong way. His left arm pops out of his socket, and it no longer responds to his commands. Jerry takes advantage of this and bears down on the dislocated joint until he screams, sour tears squirting from his eyes like lemons. 

Tyler's hindbrain takes control and he lunges up to bite Jerry's face. He bites his nose until his teeth pierce the cartilage, and Jerry jabs him in the eye until he lets go. Tyler's right eye fills with blood and he sees red. 

Jerry pulls away, but Tyler isn't done with him yet. He hates him even more than he hates Lydia now, which is an interesting turn of events. He bites, grabs, does whatever he can without access to either of his weapons. He tastes blood, hot and metallic and disgusting in his mouth. Jerry shouts and rips Tyler off, and Tyler takes a piece of his left cheek with him as he collapses onto the ground next to Lydia. He spits it out and it lands on her face. 

Tyler wipes the blood from the right side of his face, avoiding the eyeball, and grabs his knife from the bed, staggering to his feet. The fight moves out into the hallway. Tyler keeps the knife between them as a buffer, because he knows he can't beat Jerry hand-to-hand. The pain is getting to him, though, and he has to end the fight soon before he collapses. 

Jerry swings for him, and Tyler swipes at him, cutting his knuckles. It makes Jerry hiss and recoil, and Tyler takes advantage of his weakness to rush forward and stab him again, this time deep in his gut. Jerry coughs, and hot blood drips onto Tyler's shoulder.

Using the last bit of his strength, Tyler marches forward, pushing Jerry backwards until he topples over the staircase. 

Tyler finds himself falling, too. Jerry's wrapped both of his arms around Tyler to take him with him, and he can feel his ribs crack as they tumble down the stairs, Tyler's smaller body being crushed beneath Jerry's.

For a minute, Tyler is paralyzed by the crushing pain in his ribs, the tearing feeling in his dislocated shoulder, the throbbing in his eye, and the sharp ache in his calf. He stares up at the popcorn ceiling, summoning up the strength to _move move move_ as he hears Jerry stir beside him. 

Tyler manages to reach over and rip the knife out. Any progress Jerry's made towards getting back up is quickly undone. Tyler pushes himself to get on his hands and knees and straddle Jerry's body.

He plunges the knife into his chest. It hits a rib, so he tries again. He does it again and again, not getting very deep but still doing damage, moving further up until he finishes the job by stabbing him in the mouth. The blade goes through his soft palate and skewers his brain stem. Jerry's eyes roll back in his head and he goes limp, dead. 

Tyler pulls out the knife, taking Jerry's tongue with it, and lets out a pained whimper as the adrenaline wears off. There's no way he can finish the job-- he needs to go home. 

He musters up the last reserves of his energy and stands up, staggering towards the front door, leaving bloody footprints as he moved. His hand fumbles at the doorknob, and it takes him a few tries to get it open. The night air is cool on his face, and he would breathe in deeper if he could. For now he stumbles off the porch and starts feeling very, very dizzy.

He only makes it halfway across the lawn before his vision whites out.

 _Fuck,_  he thinks, collapsing onto his knees and falling on his face. _Fuck._

He's on the ground when his vision returns. It's quiet outside. Through the pain, all Tyler can think is a litany of _Josh Josh Josh Josh I have to call Josh--_

He can't breathe-- he feels like he's being crushed under his own weight. A tear slips down his face as he stares ahead out of one eye. The smell of the soil and dry grass tickles his nose, and it's a comfort beneath the overwhelming smell of blood. He shuts his eyes and takes as deep of a breath as he can before reaching, slowly, for his phone.

* * *

 

It was seven in the evening when Josh got the call.  
  
"Hello?"  
  
"Josh!"  
  
It was his mother, and her voice sounded distant and shaky. Josh got up from his seat and stared at the wall as he waited for her to continue.  
  
"It's Jordan, he-- you need to come to the hospital right now."  
  
"Wait, what happened?" he asked.  
  
"I called him down for dinner, and he wasn't responding, so I went upstairs--"  
  
Her voice broke again, and Josh realized that it would be cruel to force her to say it out loud. Like origami, a monstrous shape was emerging from a flat, indistinct sense of terror as he pieced it together.  
  
"I'll be right there," Josh said, hanging up before she could respond.  
  
Josh pocketed his phone and leaned out the window to address the kid waiting outside.  
  
"Hey, kid, listen, I'm really sorry but I have a family emergency, I can't do this right now. I'll come back tomorrow and you and your friends can all get ice cream for free."  
  
He ducked back inside and drove off before he could see his reaction.  
  
Traffic was atrocious this time of night, and Josh cursed his big, boxy, unmaneuverable vehicle, desperately wishing for his motorcycle so he could just wedge his way between all those stupid cars. He chewed his lip to shreds each time he got stopped at an intersection.  
  
It all made sense now. The quietness, the poor performance in school, and then the sudden cheerfulness this morning. He remembered some teacher or counselor telling him that people who were about to commit suicide tended to become unusually happy right before they attempt it. How did he not pick it up before? How did none of them notice?  
  
Josh banged his fist against the steering wheel in frustration and accidentally laid on the horn. Someone screeched past him and flipped him off as he went.  
  
"Fuck you too!" he shouted.  
  
The red light was taking too long. He didn't have time for this. He was at the front of the lane and there was a gap in the stream of opposing cars, so he just drove through them, continuing on en route to the local hospital, gripping the steering wheel so tight he could feel the joints in his fingers creak every time he made a turn.  
  
Evem with his rushing, Josh arrived at the hospital a good twenty-five minutes later. It was impossible getting the unwieldy truck parked, but he managed by taking up two spaces. It didn't matter-- there were plenty of spots for other cars and he had a good excuse. His brother was dying.  
  
He had no idea where to go, so he rushed for the front lobby and slammed his hands down on the receptionist's desk.  
  
"My brother's here," he said, panting, "his name's Jordan Dun, he's fifteen, I'm his brother--"  
  
The receptionist held up a hand and silenced him, looking nonplussed.  
  
"I'm not the person you need to talk to," he said, pointing to the visitor's desk. "You go over there."  
  
Josh didn't know whether to be offended at his obvious lack of interest or grateful that he stopped him before he could waste any more time.  
  
He signed in at the proper desk and got directions to Jordan's room in the ICU. The hallways were endless and bland and more than once he got turned around-- he couldn't tell the floors or rooms apart, and everyone started looking the same in their maroon scrubs and face masks and not one of them gave him a second look. Josh whipped off his paper hat and crumpled it between his fingers, feeling his curls growing damp with anxious sweat as he boarded the elevator and wandered down halls and studied directories and tried to find the damn ICU.  
  
It took him another ten minutes, but he eventually stumbled across the right room. It was about the size of a very large closet or a very small bedroom, with a rolling bed, heart monitor, and a large biohazard waste bin taking up about half the space inside. His family took up the other half.  
  
Josh wedged himself into the room, finally being noticed by his parents.  
  
"Oh, Josh, we're so glad you're here," his mother said, pushing through the tangle of limbs and bodies to hug Josh.  
  
"What happened?" he asked as he looked over her shoulder to peer at Jordan, who looked unconscious.  
  
"Overdose," his father said. "They've just pumped his stomach, they're saying he'll be fine, but I-- we almost lost him, Josh."  
  
Tears soaked his shoulders, and he looked at his father and siblings and saw that they were all crying, too. Josh was-- he felt tired. He hugged his mother back and let himself cry.  
  
The nurses brought in an extra chair so he could sit down. He positioned himself to the right of Jordan's bed, away from the heart monitor and its constant beeping. He laid his hand on the bed, not daring to touch his little brother.  
  
Every book and movie he's seen always described people laying in hospital beds as looking younger, more fragile, smaller. But Jordan looked _old_. His face was pale, with black residue around his mouth from the activated charcoal they pumped into his stomach, bags under his eyes and a deep frown that lingered even in his sleep. He didn't look fragile-- he looked broken.  
  
Josh laid his head on the pillow and closed his eyes.  
  
Not five minutes later, Josh's phone vibrated in his pocket. Josh sat up, pulling his phone out of his pocket. Who on earth was calling him this late?  
  
It was Tyler. Confused, he answered the call.  
  
" _Help,"_ Tyler wheezed over the line.

Josh's throat felt tight. That... that wasn't good.  
  
"H-ello?" he said,.   
  
"You need to--" Tyler paused there-- "you need to come pick me up. 938 Burberry Drive."  
  
  
Josh didn't think his heart could sink any further after seeing Jordan, but he could feel it settle like a block of ice in his stomach, making him feel very nauseous and light-headed.  
  
"How hurt are you? There's a-- uh, a family emergency right now."

He just got here, too. 

"It's bad enough to ask you for help," Tyler said, and Josh could hear a strange wheezing noise that he realized was Tyler's breathing. "There's a lot of blood." 

Josh dropped his phone on the linoleum tiles and the screen shattered. His chest was so tight with panic that he could barely breathe.  
  
"Josh?" his dad asked, turning back to look at him. "Is something wrong?"  
  
"Ghhk--" was all he could manage.  
  
Now his mother turned to look at him, and her frown grew deeper.  
  
"Josh, sweetie, what is it?" she asked.  
  
Stay here, or rescue Tyler? Adhere to his duties as a brother and a son, or save the life of a murderer?  
  
He made his decision like lightning, his words following like thunder.  
  
"I have to go, there's another emergency," he said quickly, grabbing his phone and shoving past his siblings to exit the cramped room.  
  
"Josh!" his mother shouted, her voice echoing in the sterile hallways as Josh retreated at a sprint.  
  
Josh justified it to himself as he incessantly pressed the down button on the elevator. Jordan was in the hospital, surrounded by most of his family, and in stable condition. He was most likely going to be okay, at least on a physical level, but there was a good chance that Tyler was dying, and Josh knew he had no one else to watch out for him. Ergo, he was justified in abandoning his family to save his friend.  
  
Josh went down the elevator, ran out of the lobby, and found his truck in record time. He keyed the engine and barreled out of the parking lot, practically driving through the parking barrier in his rush to get out onto the street, tires squealing as he drove off the curb. God, he felt like an idiot driving around in the ice cream truck like this. He pulled his phone out from his back pocket and referred to their conversation. 938 Burberry Drive. That was... northwest.  
  
He nearly drove into the curb as he tried to drive and enter the information into his GPS app at the same time, and several cars honked and swerved around him. God, what he wouldn't give to be them instead.  
  
The traffic cleared out as he drove off the main streets and into residential zoning. He was going forty-five in a thirty-five speed zone and it made the speed bumps on the smaller streets borderline painful (he could hear the tubs of ice cream and machinery jostling around each time he went airborne). 600 Burberry, 623 Burberry... He counted on and on as he went deeper into the strange neighborhood, keeping his eye out for any sign of Tyler. The sodium street lights here were dull and orange, making it nearly impossible for him to distinguish shapes and colors.  
  
He arrived at 938 Burberry and skidded to a halt when he nearly missed it. He didn't bother parking the truck against the curb, half because he didn't have the time and half because he was the only car he'd seen on the road for several blocks. If there were cars, they could go around him and his giant stupid ice cream truck.  
  
Josh got out of the truck and his knees wobbled as he hit the ground. He spotted Tyler's beige sedan across the street, and the house's lights were on and the door was open, spilling golden light onto the porch and the surrounding lawn. It was completely silent inside. Josh felt very, very uneasy.  
  
He wiped the sweat of his palms on the legs of his trousers as he approached the humble bungalow, scanning the surrounding bushes and peering inside the house for any sign of activity. There was absolutely nothing. The house was surrounded by a blanket of thick silence. Not even the late-summer crickets were singing.  
  
Something grabbed his ankle. Josh screamed and toppled over onto his behind, knocking the wind out of him. He looked down at his feet and saw a bruised and bloody Tyler lying concealed in the long, neglected grass that made up the lawn, giving him a pained smile.  
  
"Josh," Tyler croaked, reaching out for his hand.  
  
Josh offered it and tried to drag Tyler upright, but Tyler hissed in pain and his whole body tightened up in resistance. Frightened, Josh dropped him to the ground.  
  
"Oh, shit, I'm sorry," Josh said as he tried to help Tyler up again.  
  
He got it this time, though he needed to grab onto Josh's shoulder to avoid toppling over.  
  
"You're-- you're fine," Tyler said as he slowly brushed himself off. "I think my spine just exploded, but I'm okay."  
  
At eye level, Josh could really see how hurt Tyler was. There was a knot the size of a walnut forming on Tyler's left temple, and his entire face was covered with a menagerie of cuts, bruises, and scrapes. His left arm hung out of its socket and the sclera of his right eye was filling with blood. All of these, on top of the obviously broken ribs and the dazed look on Tyler's face, were not good signs.  
  
"Are you okay?" Josh asked as he started steering them both towards the ice cream truck. Maybe he could get some of the dry ice, wrap it in something safe, and let him press it to his head.  
  
"Yeah, I just had a hard time getting rid of this them. They're still inside."  
  
"Alive? They?"  
  
Tyler tried to swallow, but gave up and spat a bloody glob of saliva into the grass.  
  
"Yeah. Dad was in on it, too. He's the one that did all this to me."  
  
Josh looked at the house, then at Tyler.  
  
"Okay, we're getting out of here right now," Josh said, starting to herd Tyler towards the truck. "I'm taking you to the hospital."  
  
Tyler didn't budge.  
  
"No," he said. "I need you to go in there and-- ow-- and finish the job."  
  
Josh's hand fell away from Tyler's shoulder.  
  
"You want me to _what?_ " he asked.  
  
Tyler gave him a tired grin.  
  
"You heard me," he said.  
  
Josh did, unfortunately. He stared at the ground in dismay, unsure of what to do next.  
  
"Hey," Tyler said, interrupting his panic, "they're the people you pointed me to a few weeks ago, did you know that?"  
  
"Really?" Josh asked, and Tyler pointed to the garage. There was the exact same red sedan he'd seen the little boy get dragged into.  
  
"I watched 'em for a while, and you were right," Tyler said. "It was bad. Really bad."  
  
"What about the kid? Is he okay?"  
  
"I think?" Tyler asked, wincing as he tried to rub the back of his head in his usual way. "I barricaded his room so he didn't have to see it."  
  
"That's-- that's not comforting," Josh said, starting to walk towards the house. "Get in the truck, and stay in there. I'll get the kid. I need to call the police."  
  
Tyler flinched.  
  
"Not on you!" Josh said, raising his hands defensively. "For the kid. I mean, we can't just leave him here."  
  
"No cops," Tyler said, voice low. "Only if he asks for them. We can drop him off at a hospital or a fire station."  
  
Josh paused, and started to consider the ethics of this whole thing for the first time. Like, sure, the kid's parents were out of the picture now, but then what? Assuming the kid didn't have nice relatives, he'd end up in foster care, and that might end up being even worse for him than his current situation. Not to mention the inevitable trauma that would come with being orphaned in such a violent way, regardless of whether or not he'd actually seen any of it.  
  
He felt sick. This was-- this was too much. Tyler had gone too far. His other prey-- at least the ones Josh knew about so far-- were all single, living alone, had no dependents. No one was really hurt by their passing, not in any meaningful way. But Tyler had just orphaned a completely innocent child and had no intentions of providing him any other form of support. He knew Tyler's moral compass was a bit off, but this wasn't even an ethical issue at this point; this was just a complete lack of foresight.  
  
Josh then remembered that it was _he_ who told Tyler about this family. He was responsible for all of this. And if he called the police on Tyler, Tyler would tell them that he got the idea from Josh, and then he'd go to prison, too. Maybe they'd even get to share a cell.

What has he _done?_  
  
There was no getting around it: he was hopelessly tangled in this crime, and he needed to help Tyler hide it.  
  
"Josh?" Tyler asked. "Are you alright?'  
  
"No cops," Josh said, shuddering. "That's fine with me."  
  
Tyler furrowed his brow in concern, but said nothing more on the matter.  
  
"Listen," he said. "My duffel bag is at the bottom of the stairs. There's a hatchet, some plastic wrap, and two tarps in there. I need you to finish up the job for me."  
  
Josh was hit with another wave of nausea. The reality of the situation, so far from the mindless fantasy he'd carelessly allowed Tyler to actualize, was getting grislier and grislier and there was no escape from it.  
  
But what was one more heinous act in this train wreck of a night? He needed to own up to this, and that meant leaving no loose ends. He had to keep going, get this over with, and he could cut ties with Tyler after everything was done. No need to make the present even more complicated.  
  
He nodded, taking a deep breath.  
  
"Okay," he said. "Just go to the truck and rest. The door's unlocked."  
  
Tyler gave him a tired smile, lopsided by all the swelling in his face.  
  
"Thanks, Josh," he said. "I knew I could count on you."  
  
His blood looked black in the orange glow of the street lights, and his grin was just a little too wide, teeth just a little too sharp.  
   
Josh swallowed and turned tail for the house. He stopped before he opened the door, his hand resting on the handle. Whatever was inside was all his fault. Breathing in deep, he opened the door. 

There was a macabre scene waiting for him inside. The father was dead on the living room floor, face-down in a large pool of his own blood that stained the plush carpet a stinking, viscous red. _Jesus Christ_ , he thought. Tyler had done a number on him-- he looked even worse than Tyler did.

Josh carefully side-stepped the corpse and looked around for the mother and the kid. There was no sign of them here, so he went upstairs, ignoring the bag for now, his footsteps making the steps creak ominously.

The second floor was a mess. Pictures had been knocked off their places on the wall, there were dents in the drywall, and specks of blood (which might be Tyler's) stained everything. The door to the master bedroom was wide open, and Josh could see a leg at the foot of the bed. Yikes.  
  
He crept in, not taking his eyes off the body lying supine on the floor, almost under the bed. It was the mother laying supine on the floor. She was very, very still-- so still, Josh wondered if she had already died.  
  
Her left eye was swollen shut, but the right one swiveled and fixed on him, glaring. Oh. Not dead.  
  
She made an awful wheezing noise, which might have been a mangled attempt at words. Josh chewed the inside of his cheek before stepping closer to her. She twitched, her arms scrabbling against the floor to drag herself away, but the lower half of her body was completely limp. She was bleeding, but that wouldn't explain her paralysis. Josh spotted a sledgehammer leaning against the wall and pieced together what happened. He'd wanted to do something like this for years, but the sight of it in real life made his stomach turn.   
  
She was in a pitiful state, but Josh wasn't sure if the squirming, uncomfortable feeling in his gut was sympathy or simple visceral disgust at her mutilation. _Just get the job done,_ he thought to himself. _Just turn yourself off and do it._  
  
He reminded himself of what he'd seen at the park, and what Tyler had told him. She beat her child, her own flesh and blood, and she was no better than Gardner or the multitude of other predators Tyler had taken down. Same for the father. No child deserved a family like that.  
  
Satisfied with that conclusion, Josh stepped over her body to grab the hammer. She made a panicked grunting noise, but it was easy to ignore it as a mindless, animal sound. He turned the sledgehammer's handle around in his hands, feeling its solid weight as it dangled from his hands. He gripped it and raised it above his head, aiming for hers.  
  
But she flinched. She flinched, and that ruined everything. The illusion was broken-- this was a person. Josh was about to become a murderer.  
  
Josh tossed the hammer aside, where it makes another dent in the wall. He rubbed his face with his hands.  _Shit_ , he thought to himself, _shit_. What was he _doing?_  
  
The woman blinked. He still had to get rid of her.  
  
Josh knelt down and grabbed the woman's shoulders and pushed her, turning her over so she lay face-down on the carpet, mouth and nose obstructed. He rested a hand on her back to confirm she wasn't breathing properly. She'd suffocate overnight.

Josh ran from the room and shut the door, breathing hard as he leaned against the wall.    
   
He decided to turn his attention to the other bedroom on the second floor, which had been barricaded shut by a wooden chair. He pushed it away and opened the door.    
  
The room was largely bare, with only a bed and dresser to furnish it-- no posters, dolls, or action figures, nothing at all to suggest that a child lived there.  
  
The child wasn't here, either. Josh checked under the bed, but found only dust. He wasn't behind the dresser, either. Josh checked the closet and finally found the little boy cowering between his clothes, eyes wet with tears.  
  
"Hey," he said, and the kid flinched.  
  
Josh chewed his lip. Of course the kid was going to be nervous. He had to make him feel comfortable, otherwise he'd never cooperate. Josh sat down cross-legged and folded his hands together.  
  
"I'm not going to hurt you," Josh continued, trying to calm him. "What's your name?"  
  
The kid peered out at him.  
  
"Caleb."  
  
Up close, Josh realized that the kid was even younger than he estimated that day at the park. He was covered in bruises, some old, some new, and his nose was crooked from a broken nose that was never properly set. His whole body burned with pity.  
  
"Caleb," Josh began, speaking slowly so he could choose his words properly, "are you okay?"

"Yeah," Caleb said, even though he's pretty sure that he was just saying that.

"Did your parents hurt you?" he decided to ask.

"Only 'cause I'm bad," he said, and Jesus Christ, Josh wished he'd talked to Caleb before confronting his mother.  
  
"They're not gonna hurt you anymore," Josh said. "No one deserves to get hit just because they make mistakes. I think you're a good kid."  
  
"Is he gone?" Caleb asked, ignoring Josh's reassurance.  
  
"Who?"  
  
"The bad man."  
  
Oh. Tyler.  
  
"Yeah," Josh said. "He's not here anymore. You're safe. Did he say anything to you?"  
  
"He came in through my window," Caleb said. "He asked me about my parents and then he told me-- he told me to hide in here."  
  
"Did he hurt you?"  
  
Caleb shook his head.  
  
"Where's my mom and dad?" he asked.  
  
"Uh. I don't know," Josh said, cringing internally at the lie. Caleb was about four or five, maybe older if he'd been malnourished, and he wasn't sure how aware little kids were of death.  
  
Caleb started sniffling.

"He killed them," he said. "I heard it."

Oh boy.  
  
"Do you want to come out of the closet?" Josh asked, wanting to distract him. "I can take you to the hospital. They know how to take care of you better than I can."  
  
He shook his head, burying himself deeper into his clothes.  
  
"No? That's okay, you can take your time," Josh said. "Do you want me to leave you alone right now?"  
  
Caleb nodded.  
  
"Alright, then," he said, standing up. "I'll be back in twenty minutes and see how you feel then. I can close the door if it makes you feel better."  
  
"Yes, please."  
  
Josh shut the door and sealed Caleb away.  
  
He wiped a tear from his face. He didn't know what to do now. As much as he liked kids, he realized that he didn't know too much about helping them. He didn't even know how to deal with Jordan before it was too late.  
  
Josh went downstairs. He might as well clean up a bit before taking Caleb down, if he agrees to leave at all. He just might have to grab him if he refuses, but he doesn't want to do that-- he doesn't want to force anyone to do anything, ever.  
  
The duffel bag was at the bottom of the steps, exactly where Tyler said he left it. Josh bent down to unzip it and found the materials as promised. He took out the hatchet, plastic wrap, and the tarps, and got to work on the father.  
  
First, he flipped the corpse over so that it's facing up and Josh can get a clear shot at his neck. He immediately regretted doing so. His torso and chest were covered in shallow stab wounds. His tongue was gone, and Josh spotted it laying on the oriental rug a few feet away. There were bite marks on his arms, neck, and face, each one of them bleeding in the shape of Tyler's crooked teeth like some fucked-up cattle brand.

Josh raised the hatchet above his head and swung to chop off the father's head. He wasn't confident enough the first time around and only got about halfway through the neck, forcing him to repeat the awful act. It came off with the second blow, and Josh let it roll away as he began the next step.  
  
The plastic wrap was one of the humongous rolls found at the wholesale stores. It was sticky and clung to itself, and he had a hard time getting enough out to properly wrap the body and seal all the fluids in. In the end, he only wrapped the neck, shoulders, and the abdomen, which were the only parts that were bleeding. There was the risk that the bodies would leak everywhere if jostled on the truck, but Josh just didn't care at this point. He just wanted to be away from these bodies, away from Caleb, away from Tyler and Jordan and his ice cream truck and the whole damn world.  
  
Next, he took the large blue tarp and rolled the body onto it, wrapping it and folding it over itself until the body was covered. The sides fell away when he tried to tuck it in, but he found a roll of duct tape in the backpack and used that to shut everything.  
  
He repeated the process for the woman upstairs. When he was done with her, he dragged the body down the stairs feet-first, her headless upper body thumping on each step on the way down. He dumped her next to her husband and went about collecting the heads and the duffel bag. He had no idea what Tyler did with them, but he knew that he valued them. Despite his anger, he found a pair of plastic bags and collected them for Tyler to keep later.  
  
Josh dragged out the bodies one by one and hoisted them into the hold of his ice cream truck. A little blood seeped out, and he muttered curses under his breath. He could see the dark outline of Tyler's head in the passenger's seat, reclined as far as it could go. He was snoring very slightly, and didn't wake up when Josh tossed the bodies in.  
  
He returned to the building to get Caleb. He hadn't budged from his place in the closet when Josh checked on him again.  
  
"Do you think you're ready to go now, Caleb?" Josh asked.  
  
Caleb shook his head.  
  
Josh needed him to leave now, before anyone saw the lights on and the ice cream truck and all the blood on the carpet that no amount of washing would ever remove.  
  
He had an idea. It was a terrible thought, but it was the only plan that has any potential to succeed. Josh wandered back into the master bedroom and found the attached bathroom. Inside of it was the medicine cabinet, which revealed some band-aids, Neosporin, ear drops, and-- perfect, a bottle of Nyquil. He took it and went downstairs to find a cup and some juice.  
  
There were no small plastic cups for Caleb-- all of the dishes were delicate and large, very easy for a four year old to break and be scolded over. Josh found an empty plastic water bottle, which he was sure Caleb will find less intimidating than the crystal cups, and poured a dose of Nyquil in. Now he needed something to mask the taste. He raided the fridge and found several bottles of alcohol mixers but no juice. He deliberated for a few seconds, then sighed and stirred in the mixer with the syrup. He was definitely going to hell.  
  
He took the concoction back upstairs and knocked on the closet door.  
  
"Can I come in?" he asked, palms sweating.  
  
"Yeah."  
  
Josh opened the door and sat down on the ground, setting the bottle down on the floor between them.  
  
"You need to drink," he said, and his stomach turned with the lie, but he knows he has to do it.  
  
Surprisingly enough, Caleb took it without complaint. He must have been hungry or thirsty to begin with, or maybe he was just too afraid to say no. He finished it quickly and set the bottle back down.  
  
"Do you want to come out yet?" Josh asked, and Caleb shook his head.  
  
"Okay," he said, knowing that it won't matter in the end. "Is it alright if I stay here? I won't bother you."  
  
"Yeah."  
  
Josh scooted away from the closet and sat up against the bed. He pulled his phone out and messaged Tyler.

  
  
_How are you holding up?_

Sent by Josh at 8:43 PM

 

_Still alive._

_Where's the kid?_

Sent by Tyler at 8:44 PM

 

So he _was_ awake.

 

_He didn't want to come out, so I gave him Nyquil. I'll get him once he's asleep._

Sent by Josh at 8:45 PM

 

_Good_

Sent by Tyler at 8:45 PM  
  
  
Josh checked on Caleb. He was out like a light. 

Fleetingly, Josh considered getting the hatchet and sinking it into Caleb's skull, just to spare him the misery of what was to come when he woke up. He shook it out of his head, feeling disgusted with himself. Killing children was wrong, no matter what, and it would just make everything worse if and when he and Tyler got caught.

Josh got up and pocketed his phone before parting the clothing and raising Caleb out from his little nest. He carried him like he would a much younger baby, patting his back as he made his way down the stairs and out of the house, turning off all the lights as he went. Once he was outside, he turned off the porch light and shut the front door. From the outside, there was no visible indication of the grisly double-murder that had occurred within its walls. Perhaps the house would go undisturbed for a few more days, letting the evidence rot until someone finally complained about the smell.  
  
He opened the driver's door to his truck and climbed in, clutching Caleb with one arm as he used the other to pull himself in. Tyler was awake now, staring at him from his seat. He already buckled himself in.  
  
"You're gonna have to hold him," Josh said, "I can't drive and carry him at the same time."  
  
"That's okay," Tyler said. "He's totally asleep, right?"  
  
"Yeah. I don't think he'll kick your ribs or anything. I'll pass him over."  
  
He passed Caleb over and set him down on Tyler's lap. Tyler wrapped his good arm around Caleb, holding him as close as he could without pressing on his ribs.  
  
"Thanks," Josh said, buckling his seat belt.  
  
"We'll leave him at the fire station," Tyler said. "I need to go to the hospital and it'll look kind of weird if we leave him there at the same time."  
  
"Okay," Josh said curtly, reaching into his pocket to get the keys.  
  
Tyler didn't take his eyes off him the entire time, and Josh's shaky fear and shame was starting to resolve into frustration and exhaustion. He didn't start the truck, and instead simply sat in the seat, arms at his sides, staring out the windshield.  
  
"Are you okay?" Tyler asked.  
  
"Just... tired," Josh finally said, deciding to bring up the matter later, after the kid was gone.  
  
He started the car and drove away from the scene.  
  
The nearest fire station was about twenty minutes away. The silence was getting unbearable, so he turned on the radio and kept the volume low to fill the empty air in the cabin.  
  
_I'm not sure what they said,_  
_But if it's true I'll bet,_  
_It's just one more thing I'll regret._  
_I hate my weaknesses,_  
_They made me who I am._  
  
He tried not to look over at Tyler, but when he did, he saw that he was stroking Caleb's sandy hair with his good arm, looking down on him with a delicate look on his face. Josh didn't know what to make of it, so he didn't acknowledge it.

Another crazy thought flitted through his head-- to keep the kid. They could raise him as their own; move in together somewhere and give him a room of his own, take him to school, Josh could let him ride in the truck. But that wouldn't work. Tyler had killed Caleb's parents and Josh had helped him do that, and Caleb had every right to hate them. It was also very, very illegal.

They arrived at the neighborhood's fire station and parked on the street. He went to the back and found the emergency blanket he kept in the first aid kit, and wrapped Caleb in it. He was small enough that the tinfoil-like sheet was able to wind around his body three times. Hopefully that would be enough to keep him warm for the few hours it would take for someone to notice him and take him in.  
  
Josh carried him out of the truck and to the front steps of the station and set him down, directly under the glow of the buzzing fluorescent lights. The harsh white light refracted off the motionless, crinkled bundle, and it made his fleshy face peering out of it look nearly invisible. That was the best protection he could offer him now. He shoved his hands in his pockets as he walked away, rounding the corner to get back into the truck, where he sat in silence once again. He rested his head against the steering wheel.  
  
"Are you alright?" Tyler asked again.  
  
"I don't know," Josh said, even though he knew he wasn't.

He was furious, actually, both at himself and at Tyler. But for once, he didn't cry-- his heart was a desert.  
  
"It's about the kid, isn't it?"  
  
"Yeah," he said, turning to look at Tyler. "I don't-- I don't think I did the right thing."  
  
Tyler's face was bathed in shadow from this angle. It was impossible to see what he was thinking. That was how things were with them, really-- Josh was always left guessing, one step behind, permanently falling.  
  
"Having to kill his mom?" Tyler asked.  
  
"No. I meant asking you to kill them in the first place. I didn't realize the consequences until it actually happened."  
  
"Oh."  
  
Josh knew Tyler was in pain, and he knew he should just take him to the hospital now and argue about it later when they were both in better moods. But there was a small, powerful, evil part of him, the same part of him that asked Tyler to kill Caleb's parents, that knew that Tyler would listen harder when he was at Josh's mercy: wounded, guilty, and wholly dependent on Josh's good will. Josh could, after all, simply refuse to take him to the hospital, or kick him out of the truck, or wrap his hands around his throat and squeeze the life out of him, and there would be nothing Tyler could do about it.  
  
"I mean, it's good that his parents won't hurt him anymore," Josh began, "but aren't you worried about what'll happen to him afterwards? It might be even worse for him in foster care, and I'm pretty sure the whole experience fucked him up. He asked me if you killed his parents."  
  
"Well, he's gonna be messed up either way," Tyler said, shrugging with his good shoulder. "He wouldn't have a chance with his parents. Foster care's a risk, but any change is better than no change at all."  
  
Even though he was right, that answer made Josh's fingers clench on the wheel until the veins bulged out. He was so milquetoast, so nihilistic, so unmoved by Caleb's unhappiness that it made Josh grit his teeth.  
  
"Don't you feel bad about it?" he asked, unable to hide the irritation from his voice. "Don't you feel bad about anything you do?"  
  
Tyler shifted in his seat.  
  
"I'm angrier than I am guilty. I know there's a price to pay for everything, but I'm willing to do it because I think the outcome is worth it. That was what you thought, right?"  
  
It was.  
  
"Yuu know, I was wrong about you," Tyler continued. "I thought you weren't afraid of getting your hands dirty. I thought you understood me."  
  
"Well, maybe it's better _not_ to understand someone like you, Tyler. If I'm gonna be honest, I'm starting to think you're a psychopath."  
  
Tyler didn't respond. Josh turned the key and started driving. He turned the radio back on, this time turning up the volume as loud as it would go.  
  
_Don't hang up,_  
_Because I don't have anyone left here._  
_Don't give up,_  
_Don't hang on to anything I've said._  
  
_I hate my weaknesses,_  
_They made me who I am._  
_It makes no difference,_  
_I'm insignificant._  
  
It was nine thirty by the time they arrived at the hospital.  
  
"Get out," Josh said once they parked. "Check into the ER yourself."  
  
Tyler's jaw clenched.

"You're leaving me here?" he asked.  
  
"Yes, because my brother tried to kill himself, and I ditched him to help you. I'm going back to the ICU, where I should have been this whole time."  
  
"I didn't know. I'm sorry."  
  
Josh huffed.

"You didn't even ask."  
  
He got out of the car and slammed the door a little harder than he needed to. He leaned against the side of the truck and sighed, not knowing why he was waiting for Tyler to get out instead of just going upstairs and leaving him to fend for himself.  
  
Tyler came out of the truck about a minute later. Josh closed his eyes, but he could hear Tyler's shuffling, lopsided footsteps echo in the concrete parking structure heading for him. He felt his heat when Tyler stepped closer, and he looked up to see Tyler looking worse than death in the harsh white light. Once again his damned heart betrayed him and he felt a stab of pity at the most inopportune time.  
  
"I'm not a psychopath, Josh," he said, his breathing weak and labored. "You know how I know?"  
  
"How."  
  
Tyler reached out with his good arm, slowly as to not lose his balance. Josh's scowl didn't budge as his bloodied hand got closer and closer to his face until the pads of his soft fingers brushed against his cheek.  
  
"Because I feel bad for you," he said.  
  
Despite the ghastly, deformed look of his wounded body, there was a look of tenderness on his face. Josh could feel his broken nails and dried blood scraping against his face as Tyler cupped his jaw. He realized that this was the first time they'd touched for the sake of touch. They'd wrestled each other down, they'd helped each other up, but they'd never touched for emotional reasons. Josh didn't know whether to lean into the touch or break his hand.  
  
"I shouldn't have gotten you involved," Tyler continued, "I thought I needed to change you. I wanted to drag you down to my level. But you're better than that."  
  
"I'm not 'better'," Josh said, swatting the hand away. "I've wanted to kill people way before I met you."  
  
"But you thought those things because you wanted to protect people."  
  
"And what about you?" he asked.  
  
"I just like to hurt people."  
  
His hand fell away.  
  
"Goodbye, Josh."  
  
He staggered away.  
  
Josh sighed and rubbed his face before checking back into the hospital. He made his way back to Jordan's room in the ICU. Ashley, Abby, and his mom were gone. His father was asleep in one of the visitor's chairs, and Jordan was still in his bed.  
  
Carefully, he maneuvered around the abandoned chairs to sit down next to Jordan. His eyes fluttered open when he heard Josh sit down.  
  
"Josh," he muttered, turning his head to look at him.  
  
"Hi, Jordan," Josh said, feeling some of his grief melt away at the sight of his brother. "You okay?"  
  
"Take a guess."  
  
"Not too good, huh?"  
  
Jordan shook his head and closed his eyes.  
  
"No," he said.

Jordan's arms opened in invitation for a hug, and Josh obliged him. Jordan was warm and breathing, and feeling that in the flesh was a comforting reminder that he hadn't lost him.

"You smell weird," Jordan said, and Josh's heart sank. "Where were you?"

"I had to pick a friend up," Josh said, hoping that Jordan wouldn't pick up on his nervousness. "He got in a-- a fight."

"Is he okay?" Jordan asked. "And who is he? I didn't know you had friends." 

"Very funny," he said, trying not to sound too relieved that Jordan believed his lie. "And yeah, he'll live."

They pulled away. Seeing Jordan awake made everything feel a little better. A little. 

"Hey, Josh?" Jordan asked, and his face suddenly looked very grave again. "Can I tell you something?"  
  
Josh sat up in his seat.  
  
"Of course," he said.  
  
"Please don't--" Jordan's voice cracked-- "Please don't tell Mom or Dad. Or anyone, actually."  
  
"I promise I won't."  
  
"I'm, uh, my teacher, uh--"  
  
Jordan's words stumbled over each other on the way out and he stopped with a sigh, chewing his lip as he prepared to say it again.  
  
"One of my teachers is making me have sex with him," he said all at once.

All the fear, all the anger, all the sorrow came rushing back in waves.

"He _what?"_


	4. Destruction as Creation

"Please don't be mad at me," Jordan pleaded, glancing behind Josh's back to make sure their father hadn't heard, "I didn't know what to do, he said I'd flunk if I didn't."

"I'm not mad at you, Jordan," Josh said, forcing back tears. "It's not your fault. And I'm sorry that none of us noticed until now. Thank you for telling me."

Jordan nodded, his eyes getting watery. He wiped his eyes on the thin cotton sheets.

"I'm sorry, Josh," he said, his voice cracking. "I'm sorry for not telling you."

"You told me now, and that's what's important," Josh said, resting a reassuring hand on Jordan's shoulder. 

(At least he hoped it was reassuring. It was clammy and smelled like blood after all that bullshit with Tyler.)

"And I'm sorry for trying to--" Jordan swallowed-- "trying to kill myself. I didn't know what to do. Sorry for scaring all of you. I just wanted it to be over." 

"I'm just glad that you're alive, Jordan. That's all that matters."

They both went quiet. There was a clock hanging on the wall, and it ticked in time with his father's gentle snoring, filling up the empty space between them. 

"So what do I do now?" Jordan asked.

Josh's heart crawled into this throat. It was a very good question-- what _do_ they do? An hour ago, the answer would have been obvious: call Tyler. But now? Now Josh wasn't so sure. He had always worried about the kids he saw outside, but it had never occurred to him that any of his younger siblings might become victims, too. He didn't feel angry or hateful or motivated, all of that had died when he saw those bodies. All that was left was sadness and exhaustion.

Would the police listen to him if he went to them? He had a name, location, victim, and perpetrator. They had no excuses this time, right?

It was hard to say. But there was nothing else he could do.

Josh breathed in deep and ran a hand through his hair, a nervous trait he realized he'd picked up from Tyler.

"We have to tell the police, Jordan," he finally said with a sigh.

Jordan's face fell.

"But I--" he stammered, "it's so..."

"So what?"

Jordan's face screwed up before he finally spat out the word.

"Embarrassing. It's embarrassing."

Josh remembered what Tyler had told him when he broke into his basement with the severed head. _You understand the pain, don't you? The humiliation. And you carry it with you for your whole life, I mean, the counselors always say they'll help you enough so that you don't have to think about it all the time, but look at all the good that did._

Was his little brother going to end up the same way?

No, he decided. No, he wasn't, not if Josh had any say in it.

He looked Jordan in the eye with all the intensity he could muster.

"Jordan? Look at me, please," he said. "I don't want you to be ashamed for any of it. None of it was your fault, not even staying quiet, and no one's going to blame you for it. You're a kid, and your teacher--"

"Mr. Bourbaki."

"Mr. Bourbaki, it's all on him, okay? It's not fair that you're going to be the one who has to deal with the pain of it afterwards, but I promise that I will always be here for you, even if I don't always understand. The rest of us will be, too, if you decide to tell Mom and Dad. If you're feeling angry, or violent, I want you tell me. No matter how bad it is, because if you keep it inside, it's going to drive you crazy. I'm sorry for not being as good of a brother as I could have been."

"It's okay," Jordan said. "I think you've done a pretty good job."

"Thanks. But do you promise to tell me?"

"I will."

Jordan fell asleep again soon after, and his father woke up just as Josh was starting to nod off.

"Josh," he said as he stretched, "you're back. Where did you go? You weren't answering your phone."

"Uh--" Josh stammered, "a friend of mine, he got hurt, and he needed help."

His father furrowed his brow.

"Who?" he asked, and oh boy, this was going to get sticky if he didn't change the subject. 

"Just some dude I met at work," Josh said, and technically that wasn't a lie, was it?

His father didn't believe it, Josh could tell, but he rubbed his eyes and yawned, clearly too tired to question it now.

"Alright then," he said. "Step outside with me for a second, would you? It's about Jordan."

Josh obliged, feeling very nervous. They stepped out into the nearly-deserted hall, the fluorescent lights burning his tired eyes. His father looked _very_ washed out and aged.

"Did Jordan say anything to you while I was asleep?" he asked.

Uh.

"No," Josh said, perhaps a little too quickly.

His father sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose with his hand.

"That's disappointing," he said. "I thought he would have said something to you. I know I'm not always the best father, I don't think he trusted me enough for him to come to me even when he needed it."

He trailed off, and Josh realized that his father was crying again. He felt a stab of guilt and the urge to tell him what Jordan had said just to make him feel better, but he caught himself. He made a promise to Jordan, and he'd tell their parents when he was ready. For now, his father would just have to worry for a little longer.

"When is Jordan gonna come back home?" Josh asked, trying to change the subject.

"He's gonna have to spend another week in the hospital, in a different wing. Suicide watch and all. He'll be able to go home after that, but he's going to need therapy, and not from the school counselors."

A week. The police had a week to arrest that teacher, because Josh didn't want Jordan to ever see that him again, not without his family with him, not without the protection of the law.

They woke Jordan up again briefly to say goodbye. Josh had work the next day, and so did their father. His dad drove home in his car, leaving Josh to take the ice cream truck back alone.

Josh ripped off his nametag and the weird paper wristband before he got into the truck. He realized that he'd forgotten something very important when he got inside and the metallic smell coming from the back hit his nose. He'd forgotten about the bodies.

 _Shit,_ he thought. What was he supposed to do with them? Tyler had never actually told him how he disposed of the corpses, or why he chopped off the heads because he thought that Josh would have eagerly followed him the whole way like a newly-hatched duckling. Not that Josh hadn't been acting like one, but he was well past regretting his own stupidity-- there was a bigger question at hand. He couldn't just storm into the ER and ask Tyler, in public, how he got rid of the bodies. Security notwithstanding, Josh didn't want to ever see his monstrous face ever again. (His face was sweet. Very sweet. Tyler was doe-eyed and rosy-cheeked like a porcelain doll.)

Josh laid his head down on the steering wheel and accidentally pressed the horn. Cursing, he lifted his head and turned the key. He had an idea where to get rid of them.

One benefit of living so close to the Great Lakes was that there were hundreds of estuaries running through the heart of the state. There were a number of large, lazy rivers just a few miles from Columbus, their beds so choked with mud and catfish that anything that sank to their bottom would never resurface. Josh set west for the Olentangy River and turned on the radio.

 

_I'm on the bottom of the ocean floor,_  
_Eye for eye, drowning just to keep the score,_  
_Blaming the world outside ourselves,_  
_Surrounded by mirrors in a sinking shell._

It took him twenty minutes to leave Columbus, and another fifteen to come across one of the many isolated bridges that transverse the Olentangy. It was quiet here, as he expected, and dark. There was only the occasional hoot of an owl and the singing of the last summer crickets. The lights lining the edges of the long bridge were a dim orange and far apart, and false shapes and shadows taunted the corners of his eyes. He shuddered-- and not just because it was getting cold.

 _Just get it over with,_ he thought to himself. _Then you can go home._

Josh opened up the back of the truck and dragged out the first body: Lydia. She was heavy, stiff, and beginning to bloat, and it was a challenge getting her over the four-foot high railing. Eventually he managed to tip her over the side, and he leaned over to watch her tarp-wrapped body tumble over itself in the air before hitting the water with a faint _splash!_

Jerry was next. He was even more difficult to maneuver, and it took Josh a good ten minutes to get him into a position where he could push him off the side to follow his wife. Josh didn't take the time to watch him fall.

The heads were still in the back, but Josh knew they were too light to sink to the bottom and stay down. He'd need to dispose of them some other way. Burying them nearby was his first idea, but there was a lot of rain predicted in the weather forecast, and the loosened soil might wash away and reveal them to any unfortunate jogger or curious child. Burning them near his house would create an unpleasant smell, and it would be weird if he went out to the middle of nowhere to burn them. He didn't have a large vat of acid to dissolve them into, either, nor could he eat them.

Josh sighed and rubbed his face, immediately regretting it as he got a smear of something putrid and visceral on his face. He scowled and wiped his face on his apron and decided to just deal with it later.

The wrapped heads went into the empty freezers and Josh drove home, rolling down the windows despite the cold to ward off his growing nausea at the smell.

Everyone was asleep by the time Josh came back home. It was nearly midnight now, and Josh was simply and purely exhausted. He showered and brushed his teeth on autopilot. It didn't make him feel much better, though it was good to get the filthy feeling off his body and change into his pajamas.

Afterwards, he went down to his basement, making sure the windows were locked twice before sitting down on the bed and dialing the police station's number. He didn't forget his promise to Jordan, after all. He sat down on his bed as the phone rang once, twice, three times before the receptionist picked up.

"Hello?"

"Hi, this is Josh Dun. I'm calling to report a crime and yes, I have names and locations."

* * *

Tyler doesn't know why he's so sad-- he can't blame Josh for being upset, for being a well-adjusted human being with morals. Protecting people like that is half the reason why he kills the people he does.

The waiting room in the ER feels both impossibly crowded and yawningly empty. People sniffle and cough and bleed all over the seats and the linoleum tile, and Tyler tries to keep his distance. Not because he's afraid of their bodily fluids, but because they're afraid of his. He hasn't gotten the opportunity to look himself in the mirror, but he knows he looks like a nightmare. His right eye has completely swelled shut and he can't feel his left arm anymore. Breathing in too deep sends searing pain through his chest, and the stab wound in his leg is _still_ bleeding. He's sure that the examination will reveal dozens more injuries, some of them possibly internal due to the weird pang he's feeling in his lower gut. There's nothing he can do about any of it for the moment, though. He's signed in (alone), had the desk worker tie the wristband on his non-dislocated arm (alone), and now he's patiently waiting his turn in the room, trying not to scream out loud.

He messed up. He realizes that now. He moved too fast, revealed his true colors too early, and the monstrosity scared Josh away. Gardner's head, that weird flirting during their date (?), going out and killing Lydia and Jerry so soon; all of it made Josh clam up. Josh had been open, had been willing, but Tyler mistook being pliant for being enthusiastic and trampled that fresh sheet of snow. Still, he understands why his past self did it. He was so excited to know more about Josh and get closer to him because it was _hard_ being almost completely alone in what he did. Holding back the secrets and the unrealized ideas and urges is even more agonizing than the guilt (of which he feels little).

Killing predators isn't always right, even he admits it, but it's _something_ , and he's spent far too many years doing nothing to ever go back. He couldn't guarantee that Caleb would end up happier if he killed his parents, but if he didn't, then there would be no hope for him whatsoever. It was worth the gamble, but he isn't going to go and try and convince Josh of that-- he's done with Tyler, and Tyler has to respect that. He doesn't want to look sad and desperate either. Not many people think the way he does, and he's not going to try and force the world to see that nothing else works for him.

Well-intentioned, well-adjusted people always suggested art as a way to sublimate negative feelings, and he's tried it, he's tried it so many times, but every attempt in every medium falls flat, and the end result (if he even manages to complete it) always feels heartless and contrived. Creating feels empty. Productivity feels empty. But destruction, tamed and trained and focused, feels good. It allows him to exert control over his reality in a lasting, meaningful manner. No work of art is permanent, but death is.

He curses himself for thinking too hard. It isn't that deep.

 _Self-awareness isn't pretentiousness_ , that rebellious part of him thinks.

He's grateful when they call his name early. Clearly he's been banged up enough to take priority over that screaming baby and that man with the weird sores on his neck. They take him to one of the offices and a newbie nurse resets his arm, slowly and it's so hideously painful that he can't help but scream out loud. The newbie, a nervous-looking blonde woman named Dory, apologizes from behind her horn-rimmed glasses and wrenches his arm again. She moves on to get out the iodine and cotton balls to clean up his eye and his stab wound, cutting away the leg of his jeans to get at it. He doesn't answer her when she asks what happened to him, mostly because he's gripping the arm of the chair and sweating off all the dried blood as she pours disinfectant into the wound and stitches it shut. 

After she gives him seven stitches on his leg and three over his eye, she apologizes again for all the pain and takes him to the X-ray room to get his ribs looked at. About a quarter of them are broken. No physical activity, no sleeping on his stomach, no backpacks or duffel bags or any heavy lifting. No killing. No working, either, and that throws a wrench in his plans. Rent is due in the next two weeks, and he only has fifty dollars in the bank. He's going to be homeless. (Jenna could offer him aid, but she can't let him live in her family's condo-- her family doesn't like him, and they still think that she and him aren't in contact anymore.)

It takes him another two hours of being poked and prodded, but they finally let him go at about midnight with a prescription for some painkillers he can't afford and no way to get home. 

He sleeps on the bench outside the hospital grounds.

* * *

The leaves were turning golden, and the school semester was in full swing. It was time to get rid of the ice cream for the winter. As long as Josh could remember, his father had gotten rid of the leftover ice cream by giving scoops away for free, and it was a tradition he was more than willing to continue. He was also especially desperate for a way to keep busy this year. He'd discovered that not working meant thinking, and that thinking inevitably led to worrying.

Josh decided to take advantage of the opportunity to take a look at Jordan's school. It was the same high school he had graduated from, mind you, but things had changed in the seven years since he'd graduated. He also wanted to see if anything had been done about Mr. Bourbaki.

He'd researched him during lulls in business in the truck (which were longer now that the days were shorter and colder), and had only managed to confirm that he taught mathematics at Columbus High for the last four years. While that wasn't helpful for him, personally, it ought to be enough for the police to find him and start the investigation.

A long line formed outside his truck as he served the free ice cream. He recognized a few kids from the summer, still nut brown from the sun but looking a little colder and more tired since then. Between customers, he peeked outside to look for cops. There were no police cars parked outside the school like he would have expected-- the interviews at school should have lasted several days. But no one had called to alert the Dun family of the report, and Jordan hadn't been contacted by the CPS yet. 

Anger surged up inside him and he pushed it down, harder than he ever had before. If he didn't stop his anger, if he let it fester and grow like he did when he was talking to Tyler, only horror would follow. He didn't know if Nicolas had kids or some other dependent. He didn't know if he wanted to see any more corpses.

He ran out of ice cream after twenty minutes, even the flavors that most kids hate like coffee. He apologized to everyone still in line, and drove off to the police station. He parked and sat in his seat for a few minutes, silently praying that something, _anything_ had been done. His brother deserved better.

He took off his hat and washed his hands in the sink built into the truck before exiting the vehicle and heading in. He approached the receptionist's desk, where a tired-looking brunette woman was sorting paperwork.

"Hello," she said as she noticed him. "What do you need?"

"Hi, I just wanna check on a case," Josh said, "I'm Josh Dun, I filed an abuse report a few days ago on behalf of my brother Jordan. They said they'd open investigations, but nothing's happened so far and I want to know what's going on."

The woman clicked through her computer. Josh could see the reflection of the screen on the lenses of her glasses. He knit his fingers together, resisting the urge to fiddle with the little metal chain attaching a cheap pen to the desk as he waited.

"You filed that on the seventh, right?"

"Yeah."

"That one's been screened out on a lack of evidence," she said, looking back up at him. "The police interviewed the principal, the teacher himself, and... a few of the counselors."

Josh's blood pressure jumped.

"What?!" he barked, unable to hold himself back.

The woman winced, and he immediately regretted shouting.

"What?" he asked again, softer.

The woman shrugged.

"I don't have any control over the proceedings," she said, "I'm sorry."

"Sorry for yelling," he said, chewing his lip. "But they-- they didn't even interview my brother?"

"I suppose not. You could try to file the report again, if you want, though I doubt it'll do much.

"I'm gonna do that right now."

The woman handed him a clipboard full of paperwork and a pen. He sat down in one of the empty chairs and filled it out meticulously, still unable to prevent spelling errors in his anger. How on earth was his city's police department so fucking incompetent? What was going on behind those doors?

 _Make sure you interview my brother,_ he wrote in the 'additional notes' section.

He handed the clipboard back to the receptionist and bid her a good day, wrinkling his apron in his fists as he went.

* * *

Josh took Jordan home on his motorcycle when he was due to be released a week later. He wasn't allowed to do that, technically, but he felt that Jordan deserved it after spending all that time cooped up inside, not to mention everything else that he'd already gone through.

He could hear Jordan laughing as they sped away from the hospital, down the misty road home.

"This is awesome!" he shouted, and Josh could hear the elation in his voice.

It was good hearing him so happy.

"You think so?" Josh asked, and he revs the engine until they're going forty-five.

He was going ten above the limit and neither of them were wearing helmets, but none of it mattered-- the cops didn't care, Josh didn't care, and Jordan didn't care. Tomorrow, Jordan was going to have to go back to school, back to that awful teacher, but Josh wanted the both of them to forget about what they couldn't control, if only for a moment.

He realized that that was he'd been thinking when he hung out with Tyler. He was an escape, a shortcut around the obstacle of terrible people by killing them. But what he was doing now was constructive. He was helping someone, and himself. He wasn't wallowing in his anger like Tyler did, wasn't being solipsistic or self-centered. This was the way things would get better-- by being better.

"Hey, Jordan?" Josh asked. "Wanna get some junk food?"

"Yeah!"

* * *

"He's not talking to you anymore?"

"No."

It's eleven AM, and Tyler is exhausted. Jenna's day is in full swing, however, and she's tucking into a plate of poached eggs, avocado toast, and sliced lox, washing it down with a glass of orange juice. Tyler has a plate of French toast that he doesn't have the stomach to finish. The cafe is too loud, too bright, and he wants to stuff the soggy toast into his ears just for a little silence. He really is degenerating into a feral animal like Jenna said he would.

"You _did_ move a little fast--"

"I know," he says, not meaning to cut her off, "I know what I did wrong. I'm not confused about that. I'm just unhappy."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be, it was my fault. And I'm sorry about the meat."

Jenna takes a sip of her orange juice.

"It's fine," she says, even though Tyler can hear a bit of a grimace in her voice. "Sometimes things don't go our way. I could try using venison instead."

"It won't taste the same, people can tell," Tyler says. "Your parents are gonna be pissed you aren't making more right now, aren't they?"

"Yeah," she says flippantly. "But I'm an adult. Only I can hate me for my mistakes."

"But it wasn't your mistake. It was my fault for getting mad at Josh and leaving the bodies behind."

Jenna glances around the cafe as Tyler says 'bodies', but no one pays them any mind.

"You know how it is, Tyler. Technically everything is someone else's fault. But..."

"But being a good person is being the one to put a stop to it," he completes. "Like me owning up to being the one to ruin things with Josh."

"Yeah. I wish I could have met him. He seems decent, unlike us."

"Maybe we don't deserve him."

Jenna grins, takes her glass and raises it in agreement. Tyler grabs his own glass of water and clinks it against hers, and they drink.

"So don't worry about it," Jenna says once she wipes her orange juice mustache away with the overly plush napkins they have at this place.

"I won't," Tyler says, even though he has so much to worry about.

It hurts to breathe. He's got rent due, utility bills due, he's low on food, his black eye is still swollen and he's catching a cold-- and he can't (or won't) admit any of it to Jenna. It's not fair to her, and he doesn't want life to be unfair to her anymore. She's had enough trouble as a teenager to deserve any more of it now. So has he, really, but it's his problem, not hers.

That's how it's always been for them, even after a decade of intimacy. He's had to force an admission of unhappiness out of _her_ more than once. Perhaps it was unhealthy, or a sign of emotional immaturity or incompatibility, but this system had worked for them for a while now, and neither of them had the energy to change it. They both cope, because that was the best either of them could hope for in their short, stressful lives.

Tyler lays his hand on the table. The off-white linen covering the round wooden surface is coarsely woven but soft. It's been warmed by the sun, too, and for a moment, Tyler stops hating the Sun for its bright light and only remembers its warmth. How good it felt on his skin as he swam in Lake Erie, played with the hose in the yard in the summer, slept in the sunshine back when he felt free. He used to be tan back then, too, and that was his natural color, not this sickly, chalky complexion he had acquired from nearly four years without real sun exposure. Jenna is a little better than he remembered her being back when they were fifteen, but there's a bloodless look about her hands and face that the faint tan can't hide.

He doesn't realize that his eyes have closed until they open again at the sudden sensation on the top of his exposed hand. It's Jenna's hand, cold and smooth like he always remembered it being. It saps the heat that the sun had spread on his skin, and it's comforting the way moonlight is. He pushes his plate of toast aside and lays his other hand on the table, on the other side of the tiny little vase holding a single yellow dahlia. Her other hand follows, and it's his hand that covers hers. Their hands are about the same size. If they were the type to hold them, he's sure they'd fit together. But they don't, and they're also not the type to look each other in the eye, so they both look down at their hands and think to themselves.

Tyler's eyes are drooping. He wants to be in a bed-- not his, a real one with the comfort of another person's presence. He hasn't slept in Jenna's bed since they were seventeen, and he's never been in Josh's. Another stab of useless melancholy goes through him, and in different ways he misses them both.

* * *

Josh spent the entire next day refitting the truck in the driveway. The freezers were removable, and in their place came the hot water machines and the coffee brewers. The boxes of ice cream cones and toppings were replaced by paper cups and powdered milk, and the small fridge now hosted whipped cream, not fruit. The faded stickers on the side advertising ice cream stayed the same, though, because everyone knew that the Duns' ice cream truck sold hot chocolate and coffee in the winter, and there was no way he was going to peel all of those off by hand. No, that was a job for a future niece or nephew (he had no plans to spawn).

The air was fully on its way to chilly now, and it was a relief to break out his thick hoodie as he worked. He left his music player in the house as he worked, because it was nice to hear singing from the stubborn birds that refused to migrate even during the coldest months.

That, and he wanted to know if Tyler was watching him.

He knew that the odds of that actually happening were slim. Tyler had sworn off following him long before they broke up (was that a breakup?), and he always kept his promises. But maybe the rules changed now that Tyler hated him. Maybe he'd break into the basement again and this time, Josh wouldn't be strong or fast enough to fight him off, and all that his parents would find would be a bloodstain on the carpet. Maybe Tyler would give his head to the next person who caught his eye.

Speaking of heads, Josh still hadn't figured out a good, permanent way to get rid of them. He wrapped them in a large black garbage bag and stuffed them into the very bottom of the freezer. The Dun family rarely ate frozen foods, and Josh could guarantee that no one would open it until at least next March.

He laid on his bed right at nightfall on top of the sheets in his pajamas. He was tired, but it was still a little too early to go to bed. He stared up at the ceiling and listened to the furnace chug away beside him. 

There was a knock on his door.

"It's open," he called, too exhausted to get up.

Jordan appeared at the top of the steps. He stepped down softly, quietly, like a very small animal. Josh sat up, immediately concerned when he saw the somber look on his face. Jordan sat down on the bed next to Josh. The springs squeaked their greeting to his weight.

"Hey, Jordan," he said, trying to make conversation. "How was school today?"

"He's still there," Jordan said, staring at his feet.

Josh frowned. "Mr. Bourbaki?" he asked.

"Yeah."

"Did anyone come to your school to talk to you? Like the police, or some social worker?"

Jordan furrowed his brow in confusion.

"No?"

Hold up. This is the second time he's submitted a report, in person, and the police _still_ did nothing?

"I thought you said you already went to the police," Jordan said.

"I did..." Josh said, feeling himself age twenty years just thinking about what had just happened again.

"They never do anything, right?" Jordan asked. "You told me that before."

"Jordan, I'm so sorry," he said, reaching out to rest a hand on his shoulder.

His flesh was warm under the faded T-rex print of his pajama shirt, but there was something about him that looked very dead, even with the new medications. Josh wasn't surprised by that at all, though-- antidepressants were helpful, but they wouldn't fix everything, especially when the very source of Jordan's issues was still an active threat to his safety.

"It's okay," Jordan said. "I can just deal with it. It's just one more year, anyway."

"No," Josh said. "No, that-- it's not okay. I don't want you to ever see that guy again, starting today. And the police aren't cooperating, so we have to be creative."

Jordan sighed.

"Josh, can you-- can you not try to be all uplifting and stuff?" he asked. "It's just, not comfortable, I'm sorry. You don't have to say anything, just sit here with me."

This was the same Jordan that Josh had known in the weeks before he tried to kill himself. The hospitalization and medication did nothing. Neither did Josh's attention.

"Okay," Josh said, even though acquiescing broke his heart. It was better to be silent and keep him near than insist he speak and have him flee.

They sat like that for a good ten minutes. Sometimes Jordan opened his mouth like he was about to say something, but he always changed his mind.

"Do you know what he does to me?" Jordan suddenly asked, breaking the silence.

"No," Josh said, realizing that whatever Jordan was about to reveal should be kept between them only.

"There's a staff bathroom, and it's one of those bathrooms with no stalls, there's just one toilet and a lock, so he takes me in there after school. He-- he says there's not enough time, so it's mostly just... hands, or mouth stuff."

Josh felt sick.

"I did some research on the kinds of-- of sex abuse that happens to people, and I think I got lucky," Jordan continued. "Like, people get kidnapped and sold and stuff, I think that's worse than what's happening to me. I really think I'll be fine, Josh, I won't try to die again."

Josh felt sicker.

"How did it start?" was all Josh could ask.

"I had a really rough start with that class, I got like three Fs on my first assignments, and he said I'd have to talk to him after school to sort things out. It didn't happen all at once, I didn't even notice what was going on until it was, like, actually happening, and by that time I knew I'd also get busted for being dishonest about my test scores and stuff."

"That... you're not gonna get in trouble, Jordan."

"Well, he _said_ I would, but I don't know if I believe him."

"Even if it was a problem, I think it's a _way_ smaller issue than what he's been doing to you."

Jordan shrugged.

"I guess," he said, and Josh realized how angry he was getting and how uncomfortable that was making Jordan.

"Sorry for getting mad," Josh said, trying to push all hints of rage out of his voice. It was _very_ hard.

"It's okay," Jordan said, shuffling his feet. "I... I just came down here to tell you that, 'cause there's no one else who knows. You haven't told Mom and Dad, right?"

"I won't say anything as long as you want me to, but I do want you to know that if the police do get their thumbs out of their asses and actually start investigating, I won't really have much choice in keeping it a secret."

Jordan laughed at Josh's words, but sombered quickly.

"Well, if they do something, then I'm more okay with people knowing," he said.

"That makes sense. Is that all you wanted to tell me?"

"No, there's one more thing."

"What?"

"Thank you. For-- for listening. And being my brother. I mean, it's not like you chose to be related to me, hah, but you know what I mean. Most days I feel like I'm closer to you than I am to our parents."

Josh chewed the inside of his cheek, fighting back the urge to cry and hug Jordan until both of their ribs cracked.

"I'm glad you're my brother, Jordan," he said. "You're-- you're gonna do great things. No matter what it's like now."

Jordan bonked his head on Josh's shoulder.

"Thanks, Josh. I'm gonna go to bed now."

"Goodnight."

Josh watched as Jordan disappeared into the light upstairs, shutting the door and leaving Josh alone in his room.

As light-hearted as his departure was, the anger that Josh had sworn he'd killed came rising back up in him again, like a cancer he thought he'd cut out recurring. And he couldn't stop it now that he knew more gruesome details of his Jordan's abuse. How dare that teacher lay a single finger on his little brother? And how dare the police see it and dismiss it?

Josh chewed his lip, bit it so hard he tasted blood. The taste reminded him of the smell, and the smell reminded him of everything he'd been hoping for when he met Tyler. This world was disgusting, he realized. It didn't matter how many times he called the police, it didn't matter how many times he smiled and acted on his best behavior in the hopes that they would remember to _actually look at his fucking reports_ because they didn't care and never did. No one did, in fact, except those who'd been hurt by it, and everyone ignores them. Josh had been one of them.

Josh could be better than that, could he? After all, if he didn't do something, it would only get worse. Jordan was in no position to stop it himself, and it wasn't his moral responsibility to do so, anyway. But Josh-- he had freedom of movement, something not afforded to high schoolers, he knew how to drive, he was his brother's keeper, he was supposed to protect him by any means possible, and the means he had tried until now were not working. Jordan was his number one priority, so that meant everything else, every other person, value, every law-- was secondary.

He didn't know what Mr. Bourbaki looked like, but Josh wanted him dead. He could deny himself that truth no further. Tyler was right, and he'd been a fool to dismiss him because he didn't understand. But Josh did understand now, he understood the blinding, aching rage that went even beyond his first murderous fantasies. This was incandescent. Jordan wasn't angry, so Josh was angry for him.

Josh stood up and grabbed his phone from his nightstand. He had an important call to make, and an apology to issue.

* * *

Tyler swings his feet as he sits on the edge of his apartment building's roof. He's not going to jump, though in past years he's come close to it; he just likes being up high. All the noise and the smell and the awful tiny details of the city disappear at this scale, and he can see the tops of all the other apartment complexes, all the treetops, all the high windows of the skyscraping office buildings. The birds fly by at eye level here, and when a flock of pigeons go by, he thinks he could almost reach out and touch one.

He sighs into the twilight. It's been a week since Josh dumped him (did that count as a dumping?) and he's bored out of his mind. He's managed to track down Cherry Foster, but he can't kill her, not like this, even though it would make him feel so much better. He can barely even drive for that matter. He'll be stuck here until he gets evicted, and then he'll be stuck on the street until... well.

His phone vibrates next to him, so enthusiastic it nearly shakes itself over the side. Tyler grabs it quickly and looks at the number. It's Josh.

Tyler's heart crawls into his throat. What does he want? Something significant has happened, clearly, but what?

There's only one way to find out. He answers the phone.

"Hello?" he asks.

"Hi, Tyler."

The sound quality over the speakers is terrible, but Josh doesn't seem angry. Not at him, at least-- there's definitely tension in his voice.

"What-- what is it?" Tyler asks.

Josh takes a shuddering breath, and all of the anger in his voice evaporates.

"I," he begins, "I'm sorry, Tyler. For-- for everything. I got angry at you because you did something I thought was wrong, without understanding-- without understanding why."

There's a pause, and Josh speaks again.

"What you said about any change being better than no change-- I didn't realize how right you where. I didn't understand how angry you were. Are. So I'm asking that you forgive me, 'cause I want to come over."

Tyler's eyebrows have disappeared into his hairline. So he _was_ right, about Josh being like him. That he would understand if he'd been given the slightest push.

Was this Tyler's chance at redemption? Was Josh willing to be his friend again? Would they have a healthier relationship this time? His head swirls with questions that he still doesn't have enough information to answer.

"Hello?" the other voice on the line says, and Tyler remembers that he's on the phone.

"Yeah!" he says, all too eager. "Yeah, you can come over."

"Thank you, Tyler," Josh says, sounding relieved.

"No problem. And I'm sorry, too, Josh," Tyler says. "I scared you."

"We can-- we can talk about this when I get there," Josh says, and Tyler can hear items clanking around like Josh was looking for something. "There's a lot of stuff I wanna discuss."

"Oh, alright--"

Josh hangs up before Tyler can finish talking. Well.

Tyler races downstairs to clean up before Josh can arrive.

* * *

Josh hung up, changed out of his pajamas, and got into his riding gear. He stormed up the steps, past where his parents are watching TV in the living room together. They look up at him quizzically when he passes them, searching the foyer for his keys.

"Where are you going?" his mother asked.

"I need to-- I need to catch up with a friend of mine," Josh said, fishing out his keys from the tangle of knickknacks on top of the shoe cabinet. "I promise I won't be long."

He left before he could see their reactions. He dashed over to his motorcycle, kicking the support leg and shoving the key in, twisting it and bringing the bike roaring to life. He knew where Tyler's house was, the route's been seared into his memory thanks to all his time driving the ice cream truck around town. Rush hour was over now, so getting there should be a breeze.

He realized that it would be poor form to just show up on Tyler's doorstep asking for forgiveness. He needed a gift-- anything.

A grin crept up his face. He had an idea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i thought that this was gonna be the last chapter, but then i pulled a 'film adaption of a popular ya book series' and split the ending into two parts. whoops.


End file.
